The Kino operators: 'We show different genres of music in a fun space for everyone to enjoy'

Having passed through many different hands in recent years, and been home to everything from an arthouse cinema to daytime coffee shop, the newest operators of The Kino on Washington Street are a power couple with a passion for bringing a more diverse music offering to Cork city.

Couple and co-Directors of Banger Productions, Chloé Gonzalez and Gilberto Gomez (stage name DJ Blue 9), took over The Kino space about a year ago, converting the venue into a fully licenced bar and nightclub.

Having first met six years ago, the pair have a combined expertise that is the perfect recipe for success in the events sector.

Rapper, DJ, and photographer Gilberto Gomez has experience putting on gigs from doing the circuit at The Savoy and Triskel in years gone by, while model Chloé Gonzalez also has a passion for organising live entertainment, and recently went back to college to get a qualification in event management.

Their first joint project, the Independent Ladies modelling agency, was launched in Cork during lockdown, and was inspired by Ms Gonzalez’s own participation in Miss Bikini Ireland, where she got to the final.

She said their modelling agency aims to promote “all different shapes and sizes, all different nationalities”, and naturally led to them branching further into promoting diversity in music at The Kino.

The couple noticed that there was something missing from Cork’s nightlife scene, and have turned the 200-person venue into a home for music from around the globe, hosting nights themed around everything from Afrobeat, to Latin and Bollywood music.

“You know yourself, [Cork] nightlife is very similar in different places. So we really show the different genres of music and what other people would be interested in,” explained Ms Gonzalez.

“Afrobeat and hip hop was our main focus for The Kino. After stemming into that we saw a lot of different nationalities coming into The Kino, there are regulars that come in and they’re from all over the world, Spain, Portugal, India, Ireland, Poland,” she said.

“We started with Bollywood nights, we have a regular Latin night on a Thursday and Sunday… we’ve done Brazilian nights as well. It’s just to show that diversity of different types of music for different types of people, we’re trying to have The Kino for everybody, that it’s a fun space and everyone is enjoying themselves,” she added.

Having spent years rapping on the Cork and Dublin music scenes, DJ turned Banger Productions co-Director Gilberto Gomez is passionate about giving a platform to up and coming artists in Cork, to perform in the main venue, as well as avail of their music recording studio upstairs.

Mr Gomez said that their successful revival of The Kino required a total reassessment of how the venue operated.

“We’ve been hearing from a lot of people that The Kino never really operated a full year, it’s always been six or seven months and then it closes down into something else. We’ve had a lot of challenges,” he said.

“Over the whole year we had to change the basic format, do a sweep clean with the type of events we were doing, changing a lot of things, bringing the bar in… Now people love what The Kino is, and we also work with the City Council doing a couple of events with the Midsummer Festival, so it looks good so far,” he added.

As well as targeting the student crowd more this year, the pair also hope to put on an inaugural Diversity Festival this summer, promoting a range of different music over three days in August.

“Since I [started] doing music, I always had the idea of doing this massive festival. The way we do with The Kino, we do a lot of different events with Bollywood, Hip Hop nights and Latin nights, so now the idea of the festival has just grown even more,” said Mr Gomez.

“The idea that we have is to do three nights. One night for house and dance with a couple of MC’s, the second night is going to be a hip hop night, and the third night then is going to be a Latin night. Right now we already have those three kinds of crowds in the Kino anyway, and every time I talk to them they love the idea,” he said.

Ms Gonzalez said that the ultimate dream for Banger Productions is to grow their business, and to offer even more culturally diverse music events in even bigger venues in Cork.

“Our capacity [in The Kino] is 200, it would be amazing to have a bigger venue. There are nights that we would hit the capacity and you can’t let any more people in, so it would be great to a) get more people interested in what we’re doing and b) to have a bigger venue to do it,” she said.

“With the way the economy and the hospitality sector is going at the moment it’s hard to judge with the whole nightlife. There’s lots of talks about going till 6 o’clock in the morning and things like that. I think Ireland is getting more Europeanized in that sense, but I’d definitely love to see us broadening out more to more people, and a bigger venue, and hopefully succeed from there,” she added.