The year 2020 is probably one which Boiler Room would rather forget – but so long as Ears To The House is around, we’re happy to remind them of it as frequently as possible. Like many other businesses operating in the dance music world, the pandemic and its lockdowns devastated the company.
But don’t take our word for it. Take a look on British businesses register Companies House and see for yourselves – as we did last year. As our editor wrote under this site’s previous identity in October 2021…
“[Boiler Room (UK) Limited] accounts are now online and they go all the way up to October 31st last year. And they make grim reading. In 2020, Boiler Room made an accumulated loss of £11,877,734. Now, given they got a bailout last year of £791,652 from Arts Council England, the negative figure might not be surprising – and indeed, this is something they reference within the same document.
However, one look at the October 2019 figure – a few months before the pandemic – reveals they made an accumulated loss that year of £10,661,293. And going back through their other financial statements, the company appears not to have made any profit since 2016.”
As for the question of how did the business during 2021, we took a look on Companies House a few weeks ago and noticed an ominous looking warning claiming the accounts were late. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are – sometimes, it can simply mean the documents have been received but not yet been processed by Companies House.
The truth, however, is even more mundane – if not slightly disappointing from our point of view. Documents later deposited at the government agency revealed Boiler Room’s accounts are now going to be lumped into those for DICE, the large ticketing firm who took them over last year.
There is obviously no suggestion whatsoever here that Boiler Room or DICE are doing anything improper by bundling the accounts together in this way. This happens in a lot of the world of business – but it does have the side effect we now have no idea how much profit or loss the company made during 2021. The figures look set to stay shrouded in mystery…
