Ritz Ballroom, Kings Heath
Birmingham, England
The Ritz Ballroom in York Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham, West Midlands, was a 1960s music venue, known for the number of artists it hosted, who went on to become international successes, especially those on the roster of Brian Epstein.
Operated by Joe Regan and his wife Mary, the venue used a former cinema. Acts which appeared there included The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones.
In March 2013, the building, by then used as shop, was destroyed by fire.
The Regans
The Regans - known as "Ma and Pa Regan" - operated three other concert venues in the area:
The Plaza, Handsworth, Birmingham
The Plaza, Old Hill
The Gary Owen (also known as the Kavern), Small Heath
Mary was responsible for selecting and booking the acts. She was also a PE teacher at Coleshill. At the time of Joe's death, in 2004, aged 92, the couple had two children, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Building history
Originally opened as the Ideal Cinema, the building then became a snooker hall, before reopening as The Ritz Ballroom. Some time in the late 1960s or 1970s, the Regans converted the premises into a bingo hall, after which it was derelict for some years. Its final use was as a Cash Converters shop.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ritz Ballroom, Kings Heath” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.