Mecca Leisure Group (also known as Mecca Leisure Ltd, Mecca Ltd, and Mecca Dance Ltd) was a British business that ran nightclubs, hotels, theme parks, bingo parlours and
Hard Rock Cafes.
During the 1960s, Mecca was a centre of entertainment with numerous nightclubs throughout major United Kingdom towns and cities. Mecca ballrooms were used for the BBC TV show ''
Come Dancing''.
Eric Morley was a general manager of dancing at Mecca Leisure Group and was involved in the
Miss World competitions.
Notable
DJs performing at Mecca nightclubs include
Jimmy Savile
Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile (; 31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011) was an English DJ, television and radio personality who hosted BBC shows including ''Top of the Pops'' and '' Jim'll Fix It''. During his lifetime, he was well kno ...
from 1960
and
Pete Waterman.
The Coventry Locarno is the subject of
the Specials
The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, are an English 2 tone and ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group consisted of Terry Hall and Neville Staple on vocals, Lyn ...
song "Friday Night, Saturday Morning", B-side to ''
Ghost Town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...
''. Also,
Chuck Berry's live version of "
My Ding-a-Ling
"My Ding-a-Ling" is a novelty song written and recorded by Dave Bartholomew. It was covered by Chuck Berry in 1972 and became his only number-one Billboard Hot 100 single in the United States. Later that year, in a much, much longer unedited form ...
" was recorded there.
History
The Mecca Leisure Group has its origins in the Mecca Agency Limited, a company co-founded by Carl L. Heimann and Byron Davies in 1933 to operate the recently created
dance hall
Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities i ...
chain Mecca Dancing.
[Nott, James (2015). ''Going to the Palais: A Social and Cultural History of Dancing and Dance Halls in Britain, 1918-1960''. ]Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...
, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
. . pp. 26-27.
In 1989, the company acquired Pleasurama plc.
In 1990, the
Rank Organisation made an offer of £512m to acquire Mecca Leisure Group, which was initially rejected, and then accepted two months later.
Venues
References
{{reflist, 33em
External links
meccadancing.com
Leisure companies of the United Kingdom
Gambling companies of the United Kingdom