London-based club promoter Boiler Room used the venue as an early base from 2010, while the record label Hyperdub has hosted many events there.
Per The Standard, Corsica Studios was awarded a £400,000 grant from Arts Council England in 2020 to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two years prior, it received £125,000 from Delancey – the real estate firm behind the Elephant and Castle development – to soundproof the building.
But sources told Southwark News in 2023 that the cost of relocating, soundproofing and licensing the complex would be “unviable”, and said the venue was “threatened by regeneration”.
Later that same year, Alice Hoffmann-Fuller, operations manager at Corsica Studios, spoke to NME as the UK faced losing 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues in 2023. “There is no ecosystem without something at the bottom – a breeding ground for musical and performance education,” she explained.
“That’s what the grassroots is. That’s where people learn their stuff to take them into a higher level of the entertainment industry. If we’re not there, the entire system collapses. That’s what we’re seeing at the moment. We’ve got a lack of original artists and there’s only one reason for that: they’ve got nowhere to actually perform.
“We’re losing venues all the time, and our venue has been under threat for years.”
Hoffman-Fuller added: “We just have to get across to them that if we don’t exist, then they don’t exist. That’s all there is to it, really. That’s why we need to start demanding investment in what is the breeding pool where the artists come from.”
At the beginning of 2025, it was reported that the UK was losing one grassroots music venue every fortnight as the industry demanded “action not words” to help save them.
In the summer of 2021, Corsica Studios was evacuated following a major fire in Elephant and Castle.
An official description on the club’s website reads: “Corsica Studios is an independent arts organisation committed to creating and nurturing creative spaces throughout London. Located within two railway arches in Elephant and Castle, our venue is a hub for innovative music, art, and culture.”
It adds: “The space is divided into two areas: a main room for live music and a smaller studio adjacent to it, both designed to provide an intimate yet immersive experience. We are licensed for entertainment and alcohol until 3am (Sunday–Thursday) and 24 hours on weekends, with special permissions on Bank Holidays.”
