Claridge event hall in Saint Josse at risk of closure

The Claridge event hall in Saint-Joose, which attracted headlines last year for hosting a gathering of the far-right, could face closure.

The venue is currently up for public sale after four difficult years, Bruzz reports, with the proceeds of the sale intended to repay more than 200 crowdfunders who tried to save the hall back in 2021, but were not reimbursed in time.

“I hope [a sale] won't be necessary,” owner Ben Yaghlane said.

“On 16 January I signed a loan agreement with a new fundraiser so that we can still pay all our creditors.

"However, the procedure takes up to 45 days and my notary couldn’t wait that long… Hopefully that procedure will be completed more quickly than the public sale."

The creditors in question are some 210 private investors who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign for Claridge via the BeeBonds platform in 2021.

Yaghlane said he expected to have all the necessary funds in his account by 2 March. The public sale closes less than a week earlier.

Bidding for the Claridge starts at €2.3 million via the auction platform Biddit and will continue until next Tuesday, 25 February. The sale includes two apartments in the building in front.

“I had hoped we could ask for a two-year extension,” Yaghlane said.

“During the pandemic, the entire events sector came to a standstill. This lasted for a long time. I would therefore like to express my highest respect and gratitude to all the individual investors for believing in us then.”

The intention of the round of crowdfunding was to raise €1.8 million for the renovation of the two apartments in the block of houses in front of the event hall, which would then be sold to reimburse those who gave money.

The target amount was almost completely achieved, but the rest of the funds never came, and the renovation of the apartments was delayed due to notarial and urban planning discussions, according to Yaghlane.

Yaghlane has owned the Claridge event hall since the 1990s through his company Ben's Events, which he now shares with his children. The children are responsible for operations and therefore the programming, which is done through a second family company, Ben's Media.

If sold, the event hall would continue to be run by Ben's Media under a new owner.

“Our agenda for 2025 is completely full and planning for 2026 is going extremely well,” Yaghlane said.

The Claridge itself is almost a century old. It was once a garage behind two houses on Chaussée de Louvain before being converted into a cabaret theatre in 1933.

It made headlines last year for hosting Britain’s Nigel Farage and right-wing conservative French politician Éric Zemmour, who both made speeches there after two other halls in Brussels refused to accommodate them.