For the past couple of weeks, the historic Fortitude Valley venue – which was built in 1917 – has been offering the chance for small groups of visitors to make use of the venue in an intimate setting that includes a four-course meal, drinks and entertainment.

As the Tivoli’s co-owner and creative director Dave Sleswick has put it, “COVID-19 has changed the way people are allowed to gather and experience live music, so instead of focusing on what we can’t do during this time, we’re focusing on what we can”.

“We’re finding it really hard to sit and wait to be told what we can and can’t do, so we’re really trying to continue to activate our brand and continue to activate our building, even if it is creating experiences that are for a smaller amount of people,” Sleswick told InQueensland.

“We’ve got a large commercial kitchen on site, we’ve got caterers here that are resident caterers, so we’re actually quite lucky that we have a little bit to play with from our facility.”

As part of the Commune dining packages, which start at $165 per person, guests also have the option of booking a live musician or band, DJ or murder-mystery cabaret theatre package to go with their dinner, and Sleswick said the response had been “incredible” so far.

“It’s a private venue takeover, so they get the Tivoli to themselves and it’s a four-hour experience and with that four hours they get a four-course meal with paired wines, as well as the ability to work with us to curate artists, bands or musicians to play and soundtrack their night, which is obviously an additional fee on top of that.

“People can bring in their own bands and suggestions, we can either help them find someone or they can bring someone to the table themselves and either way it’s fine. We’ve got the facilities to do it so it’s all pretty straight forward.

“In terms of musicians, I guess we’re working with people’s budgets, so lots of people don’t have, you know, a spare a couple of grand to throw at really well-known musicians but we’re doing lots of local jazz trios, we’ve got a couple of great cover bands coming in and just kind of taking it as it comes by some people’s individual tastes.

“Guests also have the ability to select a murder-mystery option and we’re working with a bunch of artists, called Brisbane Immersive, and they’ve curated a customised Tivoli murder-mystery night. So they’ve been really popular as well.

“In the first 48 hours, we had booked most of the weekend nights in June and now pretty much all of June, Thursday through Sunday, is booked and it’s a pretty similar story with July, so we’ve taken about 50 confirmed events since we launched just over a week ago, so it’s been great.”

When the Tivoli initially started taking reservations, a maximum of ten people were allowed at restaurants and venues, but since restrictions have officially eased further, Slewsick said staff had been contacting those who had already booked to encourage them to expand their bookings to include u0 to 20 people.

“Everyone that booked in for 10, we’ve called him back and said, look, we can now do 20, and we’d really encourage you, for the sake of your own event but for our sake as well, to go out there and see if we can find some more people that can partake in this pretty special opportunity that you’ve nabbed a spot in.”

In addition to the dining and entertainment packages, in late April the Tivoli converted part of its interior into a bottle shop and community store to sell its excess alcohol stock, as well as merchandise from 4ZZZ and records from West End’s Jet Black Cat Music.

“To be honest the main reason why we decided to open the doors of the bottle shop was not because it’s a really big revenue stream – it’s a very, very small amount of money that we’re making comparatively to the losses that we’ve incurred because of COVID-19 – but it’s been more about being more about not lying dormant,” Sleswick said.

“It was about literally having the front door open, and having something to offer in some way and connecting with our audience and maintaining a sense of momentum, rather than being kind of like, well, we’ve had to shut down and we’ve lost all of our events so therefore we’re going to close our doors and we’ll see you in October.

“Even though it’s been on a small scale, it’s allowed us to kind of maintain a sense of public visibility, which hopefully helps us when we open up doors again.”

Although Sleswick is pleased the Tivoli has been able to open its doors in some capacity in recent weeks, he said he remained focused on preparing for a return of proper live music at the venue.

“We want to get into running music concerts as soon as humanly possible, and there are going to be some complications around that based on the booking process, with event promoters and artists but as soon as we can do something, we’re going to be pushing to do that straight away.

“That’s a matter of business but it’s also a matter of that’s what The Tivoli’s purpose is – our purpose is to be putting on shows and bringing people together, so we’ll be looking to do that as quickly as we can. Fingers crossed we’re able to work towards some smaller events sooner, rather than later.”

“We want to get into running music concerts as soon as humanly possible. And there’s going to be some complications around that based on the booking process, with event promoters and artists but look, as soon as we can do something, we’re going to be pushing to do that straight away.

“That’s a matter of business but it’s also a matter of that’s what our purpose is  – our purpose is to be putting on shows and bringing people together so we’ll be looking to do that as quickly as we can. Fingers crossed we’re able to kind of, you know, work towards some smaller events sooner rather than later.”

Visit The Tivoli’s website for more information