A YORK music venue's commitment to supporting local talent will be backed up by more well-known names and bigger bands on the bills, its new boss said today.

Adam Driscoll, chief executive of Channelfly, said that some of the bands who play the company's four Barfly venues could come to Fibbers.

Top alternative bands such as Death in Vegas and Doves have played the London Barfly.

He said: "The capacity in the live room of London Barfly is not dissimilar to Fibbers.

"We will be aiming to book bands across the whole network, up the ante a bit by bringing some bigger shows.

"As well as that we will be concentrating on local artists and local support slots. We don't plan to make drastic changes to the day-to-day bands policy."

Mr Driscoll also confirmed that former owner Tim Hornsby is to stay on as Fibbers manager and promoter "for the foreseeable future."

He said: "We had been talking to Tim shortly before all the problems and had discussed working together more closely, co-promoting, that sort of thing.

"We didn't know about the problems then and obviously didn't see this happening, but we are glad to be here."

A small amount of money has changed hands in the deal, Mr Driscoll said, but he declined to reveal how much.

As reported in yesterday's Evening Press, he has guaranteed that the Fibbers name will stay and said there will be no major changes to the way Fibbers looks.

Mr Driscoll continued: "We won't be ripping anything out then putting it back in a different place. If a coat of paint is needed we will give the place one, we will check out the sound, which as far as I remember was really good anyway, but the rest will stay broadly the same.

"It would be nice to get a late licence and that is something we will be looking at, but our activities there are not contingent on getting one."

"We are looking forward to this. When I visited Fibbers a ska-punk night was on. It was fast, furious and fun, it felt familiar, not terribly different from being in Barfly."

The "Closed" signs went up at Fibbers last Monday, shortly after the venue's tenth birthday celebrations.

Mr Hornsby and his partner blamed cashflow problems for their decision to close.

Doors are expected to reopen on Bank Holiday Monday, with the annual Samaritans all-day event.

Updated: 11:47 Wednesday, August 21, 2002