The Liquid Room

The Liquid Room is a subterranean live music venue and nightclub on Victoria Street in Edinburgh's Old Town, close to the Grassmarket and Cowgate. It occupies a deep, vaulted space beneath the street and has long combined touring band gigs with late-night club events under one roof.

The building itself predates the Liquid Room name: it originally opened in the mid-1980s as The Music Box before being relaunched in May 1997 as The Liquid Room. Since then it has been widely regarded as one of the UK's leading venues for gigs and club nights, building a reputation across more than two decades of near-nightly events. A fire damaged the restaurant above the venue in 2008, and the club later underwent a significant refurbishment completed around 2010, after which it reopened with upgraded sound and lighting and an enlarged footprint.

Across its genre-spanning calendar, the Liquid Room has hosted artists from hip hop to rock, country to pop, and electronic music including house, techno, dubstep and drum & bass. Early gigs by bands such as Travis and Coldplay are cited among its Scottish debut performances, while acts including Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand, Black Eyed Peas, Kaiser Chiefs and Calvin Harris have played there over the years. On the club side, it has run long-standing resident nights such as the house-focused Suspension, which began in 2011, alongside nights like Holla!, EVOL, Musika, Redemption and the archival house night Temporal.

In UK club culture terms, the Liquid Room is best known locally as a dependable, mid-sized room that bridges live music and club culture rather than belonging to a single scene, earning it a reputation as one of Edinburgh's most enduring venues of its type. Reviewers describe it as compact and loud, with a steep entrance staircase, a balcony area, and an additional warehouse room that is opened for larger events. It continues to operate today, hosting touring bands, club promoters, comedy and Fringe shows, and remains available for private hire alongside its regular programme of gigs and club nights.