The Artyst Cambridge
A Celebration of Syd Barrett — Cambridge Corn Exchange, 10 October 2026
Call for musicians

String quartet wanted

We’re looking for a string quartet to perform alongside Men on the Border at the Corn Exchange on 10 October. Expenses paid, and a rare chance to share one of the year’s biggest local stages. If that’s you — or someone you should nudge — get in touch.

Get in touch

Expenses paid  ·  Cambridge Corn Exchange

The Artyst

The only dedicated Syd Barrett heritage venue in the world, operating with the approval of the Barrett estate. Café by day, bar and events space by evening. We are very proud to be participating in a festival of music, art, walks and talks this October, in celebration of one of Cambridge's favourite sons.

About the venue

You came for Syd.

There's a place in Cambridge that's for him all year round.

The Artyst, 54–56 Chesterton Road — the only dedicated Syd Barrett venue anywhere. Run with the approval of the Barrett estate. Mick Rock's photographs of him on the walls. In the city he never left.

We're open — come in

While you're here

If you're in Cambridge for any of the Syd Barrett events happening between the 3rd and 11th of October, we're a ten-minute walk from the Corn Exchange, over Jesus Green. Come and have a drink where the rest of the year happens.

Open [DAYS/HOURS]

What we do

Talks, live music, art workshops, wine tastings, exhibitions — and the Syd Barrett walking tour, approved by his sister Rosemary.

Downstairs

Beneath the café is a performance and workshop space: designed, acoustically insulated, licensed — and not yet finished. It's roughly half the building, and it's the room the whole place was for. A funded workshop programme is already commissioned for January 2027; it's going to another venue because this room isn't ready.

Support the workshop programme

The concert appeal raises funds through Realife Trust for arts workshops and events for people facing mental health challenges.

Support the appeal

The venue's future

The Artyst needs someone to carry it forward. If that's a conversation you'd want to have — as an operator, an investor, or a group — we'd like to hear from you.

Read more
An invitation

A rare opportunity at the Artyst.

The Artyst has found its feet — an established café and bar, a world-first Syd Barrett heritage venue, with a growing membership and a major role in the Syd Barrett Festival taking place in Cambridge this October. Now we're turning our energy to InSyde, our basement project. We're looking for the right partner to take on and grow the café and bar: a lease of the café operation, or a management partnership, with an established venue, real footfall, and a story people already love.

Start a conversation →
Join us

Four ways to belong.

From a casual membership to the people building the Artyst's future — there's a place for everyone who wants to be part of what we're making.

Friends of the venue

Arty Club

Workshops, open mics, listening nights, exhibitions. Rooted in PsychoNautics — the Red School of the Invysible College. Where culture is made.

£5 per month · Join now →
By application · the inner circle

CURE Club

Cambridge Underground Research Exploratorium. Healing, transformation, the counter-cultural lineage from Barrett through Newton. Underground by design.

£50 per month · By application →
Our supporters

Friends' Club

For those who want to help build something lasting.

£500 Talk to us →
Our principal supporters

Patrons' Club

For those backing the Artyst at the highest level.

£10,000 Talk to us →
What membership gets you
  • 10% off all food and drink at the Artyst
  • Member pricing on every event — typically £2–5 off ticket price
  • 5-day priority booking on capacity events before they open to the public
  • One free guest pass per month — bring someone at member rate
  • Right to host your own events at the Artyst under house terms
  • 5% discount on all artworks exhibited at the Artyst
  • Invitations to member-only events, including private views
— The bar

The bar at the Artyst.

We're building the bar for what will be the coolest event space in Cambridge.

A table-service bar — not a pub, not a nightclub. Evenings run on wine tastings, talks, small concerts, and the gatherings of the Invysible College. A bar that matches the room.

— Food partnership

Looking for the right person to build the food offer with us.

Chef, caterer, or food business — let's talk. matthew@othersyde.co.uk →
— Drinks partnership

Looking for a drinks partner who thinks the way we do.

Wine, beer, spirits — let's talk. matthew@othersyde.co.uk →
— The InSyde bar

A second bar. InSyde.

Opening this autumn. Be part of it.

Subterranean and acoustically designed — the CURE Club's home in InSyde. Different in character from the ground floor: a place you descend to, low-lit, made for conversations that take their time.

— Launch partner

Looking for a partner to help open the InSyde bar.

Naming rights, launch sponsorship, supply partnership — let's talk. matthew@othersyde.co.uk →
About the Artyst

A seated, cultural venue with the Syd Barrett lineage at its centre.

Opened September 2025 on Chesterton Road, the Artyst is not a pub and not a nightclub. It's a seated, table-service space for people who want to think, talk, listen, and occasionally disagree. Our evening programme runs on wine tastings, talks, small concerts, and the gatherings of the Invysible College.

We exhibit Mick Rock photography with the approval of the Barrett estate, and our Cambridge Tours programme — Wittgenstein & Friends, Syd Barrett's Cambridge — ends here most weekends.

The basement, still closed to the public, is opening this autumn as the CURE Club's home in InSyde and a second event space.

Address 54–56 Chesterton Road
Cambridge CB4 1EN
Operator Othersyde Ltd
Matthew Taylor, DPS
Hours
Licence Variation granted
17 March 2026
Since September 2025
Home / Jobs / Bar Manager
We're hiring · One role

Bar Manager to open InSyde.

We want to meet the person who will run the ground-floor bar and lead the opening of the basement bar. You'll be part of the team opening the only Syd Barrett heritage venue in the world.

About the Artyst

We're a café, bar, and events venue on Chesterton Road. Opened September 2025. We are the only dedicated Syd Barrett heritage venue in the world, operating with Barrett estate approval and exhibiting Mick Rock photography. We're a seated, table-service, cultural venue — not a pub, not a nightclub. Our evenings run on wine tastings, talks, small concerts, and the gatherings of the Invysible College.

The basement — fully insulated, acoustically designed, waiting for its final fit-out — is opening this autumn as a multi-purpose arts and community hub and the CURE Club's home in InSyde. This role leads the bar side of that opening.

What you'll do

  • Run our existing ground-floor bar — day-to-day service, quality, the customer experience, the culture of the bar.
  • Lead the opening of the basement bar — feed into its final design and fit-out, spec the kit, build the drinks offer from scratch.
  • Own bar operations — stock, ordering, supplier relationships, margins, compliance, training.
  • Build and lead a small bar team across two floors.
  • Collaborate with our events programme — wine tastings, launches, Invysible College nights, ticketed events.
  • Represent the Artyst's tone and values. This venue has a particular cultural identity, and the bar is the front line of it.

Who we're looking for

  • Experienced bar operator. You've managed a bar in a venue that took quality seriously.
  • Good with wine specifically. We run wine tastings as a core evening activity — this is not background knowledge for you.
  • Culturally engaged. You belong in a venue that programmes talks and music as much as it serves drinks. The Syd Barrett connection means something to you, or quickly will.
  • Builder's mindset. You enjoy the idea of spec'ing a bar from an empty basement more than inheriting a working one.
  • Personal Licence holder — or ready to become one.

What you get

  • A full-time, permanent role in a venue that has both cultural weight and a clear commercial plan.
  • Genuine creative authority over the bar programme — we're looking for a collaborator, not an operator-in-a-box.
  • First-in on the basement — your name is in the story of how this space opened.
  • Salary commensurate with experience. Details in conversation.

How to apply

Send your CV and a short note — a paragraph or two — telling us why this role, and what you'd want the bar at the Artyst to be. We read these properly, and the note matters more than the CV.

Applications are considered as they arrive. We aim to meet shortlisted candidates promptly.

Apply now.

We'll get back to you within a week.

Upload CV — PDF or DOCX

Opportunities

The Artyst is being built. Some of that work is what you'd expect — a basement to fit out, people to hire, programmes to run. Some of it is less obvious — partners to find, supporters to bring on board, conversations to have with people whose involvement might change what's possible here. This page is where we're honest about the work we'd like help with. If any of it sounds like you, get in touch.

Card 01  ·  Top opportunity

Business partner

A small number of people whose involvement could meaningfully shape what The Artyst becomes. Not sponsorship in exchange for a logo. A partnership — someone who brings expertise, network and capital in the kind of long-term arrangement that changes both sides.

Kinds of partnership we're open to

  • Strategic partners — Cambridge businesses (legal, accountancy, design, hospitality groups) offering pro bono expertise alongside a financial commitment
  • Property & build partners — particularly for the basement build, on a long-term arrangement
  • Cultural partners — Cambridge institutions, universities, museums bringing programming alongside support
  • Trade partners — suppliers, technology partners, ticketing partners contributing services and visibility

What it offers

  • Visibility associated with one of Cambridge's most distinctive cultural venues, run with intent
  • A working relationship with a small team that ships — not a logo placement
  • Shared authorship of what The Artyst becomes — the basement opening, the cultural programme building out over years, the Foundation taking shape
  • A founding-partner role that's hard to acquire later, when more of the story is set

Talk to

Matthew Taylor

matthew@othersyde.co.uk  ·  07878 849720

Card 02

Sponsor

Specific moments, programmes, or surfaces at the venue, in exchange for visible association with what we're doing.

What's typically available

  • Event sponsorship — a wine evening, a basement talk, a Cambridge Tours private outing
  • Programme sponsorship — a season of basement events, a quarter of community workshops
  • Surface sponsorship — a screen, a wall, a printed item carrying your association
  • One-off contribution — a defined gift toward the basement build

Talk to Matthew · matthew@othersyde.co.uk

Stay close

If you're not sure yet, or none of the above fits, simply stay close. A thoughtful email roughly once a month — news, programme highlights, things we'd want a friend of the venue to know.

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Clowns and Jugglers — Syd Barrett tribute album
Cambridge · October 2026

Celebrating Syd.

This October, Cambridge celebrates Syd Barrett in his 80th-birthday year — a citywide tribute to the artist, songwriter and founding member of Pink Floyd who called this city home. The Artyst is proud to be part of it.

A Celebration of Syd Barrett — Cambridge Corn Exchange, 10 October 2026
The celebration

A citywide tribute, October 2026.

Anchored by a landmark tribute concert at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Saturday 10 October — Syd's last-ever stage, and now the stage for his celebration, on World Mental Health Day. The programme brings together live music, a new tribute album, and a major exhibition of Barrett's own art, in aid of arts and mental health charities in Cambridge.

The celebration is organised with the support of the Barrett family. For the full programme, concert tickets and exhibition details, follow the official channels below.

Concert & tickets — Cambridge Corn Exchange → The exhibition — camopen.space →

Tickets on sale via the Cambridge Corn Exchange

At the Artyst

Our part in the celebration.

The Artyst is the only dedicated Syd Barrett heritage venue in the world, operating with the Barrett estate's approval. This autumn we bring two things of our own to the celebration.

— Psychedelic Renegade

Mick Rock's photographs of Syd.

A solo exhibition of Mick Rock's iconic photographs of Syd Barrett, on view at the Artyst throughout September and October 2026, shown with the approval of the Mick Rock estate. Proceeds from all print sales support the establishment of InSyde.

In the venue

Official merchandise, at the Artyst.

The tribute album Clowns and Jugglers and the official celebration posters will be available to buy in the venue this autumn. Come in and have a look — 54–56 Chesterton Road, most days from 10am.