Find out some of the amazing features inside Blackstock Market as it gets set to open soon

The huge new Blackstock Market venue, which will be the new home of Liverpool’s Hot Water Comedy Club, is nearly complete and the features look incredible.

It’s taken the team behind the comedy club 32 months to completely transform what was a derelict former glass bottle making factory into Blackstock Market, a multi-level space for live comedy and music.

It now includes a food market with seven independent traders plus their own pizzeria, four theatre spaces with a total capacity of more than 1,000, a cocktail bar with a waterfall, eight podcast studios, and a whisky bar. A vast rooftop space that overlooks Everton’s new Bramley Moore stadium is due to open this summer.

But it’s the stand-out features and attention to detail which have been added which will really make Blackstock Market next level.

Paul Blair, director of Hot Water Comedy Club, and his brother have had a clear vision for the day and night destination venue they wanted to create ever since they took on the warehouse building on Blackstock Street just off Leeds Street in 2021.

Central to their idea was the main theatre, which will hold 589 for live Hot Water Comedy Club gigs – that’s more than double the number they can fit into their current Hardman Street home.

That has an old Hollywood-style theatre frontage with 85-inch screens which will show artists appearing. Inside, the theatre has a low ceiling and staggered seating layout so even though the capacity will make it the biggest purpose-built comedy theatre in the world, it keeps the intimate atmosphere that comedians love.

In the food market in front of the main theatre, original Oktoberfest tables and benches have been imported from Germany to give an authentic industrial feel to the seating area.

As a wow centrepiece, there’s a life-size solid steel tree sculpture, weighing more than two tonnes which is wrapped in three kilometres of lighting.

Facing the theatre on the ground floor is the live music stage with a stunning backdrop made up of 600 reclaimed Marshall speakers, slotted together like a jigsaw to create a wall behind musicians who will play day and night.

There’s also an adjoining DJ booth with massive headphones made from empty Kopparberg cans on top!

One of Blackstock Market’s coolest elements is its jazz and blues whisky bar, which is accessed through a hidden door disguised as a bookcase.

The bar itself has been created using the old White Star shipping line reception desk, inherited with the building, and a back bar made from antique wall units, bookcases and bureaus which will hold 300-plus whiskies from around the world.

More antique bookcases house whisky lock boxes where drinkers can keep their own chosen bottles under lock and key for their own exclusive use.

Even the original pitch pine flooring and old factory steel shutters lifted by heavy chains have been retained and restored as features.

And new windows have been painted yellow and cooked in a pizza oven to create a bubble effect which produces fantastic light, especially across the copper bar top, when the sun hits them. 

Paul says the venue should finally be able to open its doors within weeks, and an already full schedule of comedians and musicians can move in.

“We’ve had some delays but that’s expected with a building of this age and size, but we’ve got about 60 or 70 people working on site at the moment to get it finished so now after 32 months we’re very nearly there.”

Find out more about Blackstock Market here.