ENTER Fibbers and you will not recognise the old place.

The stage has swapped ends, and everything has gone, everything has changed; all except for the name at the York live music bar with an 18-year history and a new owner in Tokyo Industries Ltd, the franchise behind FAC251 The Factory in Manchester and DIGITAL in Newcastle and Brighton.

Workmen working flat out to the last minute, Fibbers York will reopen tonight, redesigned, remixed and refuelled for £250,000 as a live venue, club venue and comedy venue (more of that later) with an increased capacity of 450 and a new logo by the Sheffield design company behind all those sharp Warp Records album sleeves.

Tokyo Industries’ Mancunian managing director Aaron Mellor may talk of “units” rather than venues – and he has 20 now, having acquired Tru, the former Toffs in Toft Green – but he knows his music and he can spot an opportunity.

“I love York; it’s got an amazing history and some amazing bars and we’ve been looking at it for ten years in terms of getting a nightclub here. The city has such heritage, and it has a strong student presence, which is important for us.”

Business development director Nigel Holiday – raised in Pickering and now living in York – sensed the need for an improved Fibbers.

“I went to university in York, and whenever you went visiting other cities, they had a great choice of nightclubs, but that wasn’t the case in York, so what we’ll do in York is cater for massively different genres.”

Aaron believes Fibbers had become “stagnant” under the ownership of Barfly once former manager Tim Hornsby upped sticks to open The Duchess music bar up the road in the former snooker club in Stonebow. He saw the model established by FAC251 The Factory in Manchester (in partnership with former New Order bassist Peter Hook) now working in York with its combination of live music and cutting-edge DJs.

“People are still turned on by live music rather than just a DJ and beer later on. Gone are the days when nightclubs had their controlled regime; deregulation has changed that and now it’s content-driven, with live music and DJs, but not run-of-the-mill DJs; we have boutique DJs.”

Tokyo Industries operate what Aaron calls a “routing system”, one that will benefit a city such as York. “Routing is when we can book a DJ or a band for four dates by ‘bulk buying’, so we can bring in talent that ordinarily would only play Leeds or Sheffield, rather than York,” he says.

“It’s important that we get national talent visiting York and bands also want to be confident that equipment will work and will be of a very high quality. I believe that if your specialist field is music delivery then you should do that to the very best standards possible.”

The new Fibbers now boasts a state-of-the-art sound and light system and a re-design by Ben Kelly, who shot to fame by designing the world’s first super-club, Manchester’s Hacienda.

As you enter the stage is to the left, the main bar to the right, with a second bar beyond the dancefloor. The sound console is in the middle, giving DJs the option to be on deck duty either there or on the stage.

Live music events, featuring national names to burgeoning local talent, will run from 7pm to 10.30pm; club nights from 10.30pm to 3am (although the licence extends to 4.30am); and the admission price will cover both parts of the night, with a headline act maybe doing a DJ set afterwards.

Nigel outlines the club schedule: University of York alternative dance night on Mondays; indie night on Tuesdays; Hit And Run dubstep and drum’n’bass on Wednesdays (already running at FAC 251 in Manchester on Mondays); York St John University night on Thursdays; and Bryan Stubbs’s Up The Racket indie night on Fridays.

At weekends, Aaron’s brand of new-school indie and dance, Stone Love, will be Saturday’s flavour as first witnessed at the Hacienda in Manchester and later exported to Newcastle. Sunday will be the gay night, transferred from Tru. “The size here will fit it a lot better,” says Nigel.

The other new feature will be comedy on a Saturday from 7pm, and the name behind it will be familiar to devotees of Sunday nights in The Basement at City Screen, York, one Toby Clouston-Jones. From November 6, the Hyena Lounge impresario will add Fibbers to his portfolio, while retaining his Hyena Lounge nights at the cinema.

“Toby has been looking for somewhere to run a comedy night in York on Saturday night, and he’ll be doing it in tandem with his HiFi Club night, so the acts will swap between the two venues on the night,” says Nigel.

Come tonight, Fibbers will be reborn, while still maintaining familiar hands on the tiller in Joff Hall, who continue to run the band bookings and the diary and venue manager Dave Parker.

“I think you need that individuality,” says Aaron. “Every music club needs an individual feel and we need to involve people from York, to propagate the new local scene, or otherwise you wouldn’t get the next Shed Seven or Elliot Minor.”

• Manchester indie favourites The Courteeners play at tonight’s sold-out re-launch party at Fibbers.