Ormside Projects

Ormside Projects is a 200-capacity arts-and-music venue in South Bermondsey, London, occupying a first-floor unit at the Penarth Centre. Its defining feature is elastic use: a club room on one night, a site for performance, screening or installation on another. The venue grew from a former church hall converted by artist Michael Levitt, and Southwark records it as a grassroots music, arts and theatre space.

A hall remade for late nights

In 2015, artist Michael Levitt founded Ormside after converting a former church hall into a project space for exhibitions, installations, concerts, workshops, shoots and fashion presentations. It began building its programme under Temporary Event Notices, with the council’s 2019 licensing record describing an acoustically treated, adaptable first-floor space equipped for audio-visual work. That process supplies the clearest turning point in the story: the London Fire Brigade fixed capacity at 60 for the original Units 32B and C in August 2019, after a 200-person limit had initially been contemplated. A wider 2022 application covered Units 32A, B and C and secured Friday and Saturday opening through 6:30am. The council heard that Ormside had run 73 late Temporary Event Notices across six years, generating two complaints. The venue’s present shape comes from that hard-won move toward permanent late-hours flexibility.

The room now

Ormside runs a selective multidisciplinary programme, presenting its own events alongside promoters, residency projects, artists and community uses; its official site also offers the space for photo and video production. Alternative and metal bills sit within a wider mix of experimental electronic music, noise, artist-led club nights, performances, film and installations. The first-floor room can be reconfigured around a main performance space, while its licence requires a sound-limiting device for live and recorded music. Weekend permissions run through 6:30am.