HUNDREDS OF music lovers have signed an online petition to save The Pavilion venue in Cork, after it closed without notice this week.

So far more than 1,500 people have added their names to the petition at Change.org, which calls on the Pav’s management to “reconsider” the closure.

To: The Pavilion CorkPlease reconsider closing down the Pav. It means so much to Corkonians, music lovers and Cork itself! It’s a huge part of Cork and is appreciated more then we may have shown. Let us know if there’s anything we can do to change this!

The campaign was started by Cork man James McGovern, who writes in his appeal that the club “simply cannot close down.”

However, the petition has also attracted scepticism. DJ Stevie Grainger, who helped run the venue, tweeted yesterday:

The Pav has continued posting on social media since announcing its closure on Monday morning.

Some events in the club have been relocated to other venues in the city, including a scheduled gig by Icelandic band Samaris on Tuesday night which was hosted instead at Crane Lane.

The Pavilion The Pavilion

This weekend, the fifth birthday party of long-running party Sunday Times will move to The Bowery.

Music fans and writers in Cork have been posting tributes to The Pav since its closure. Promoter and blogger The G-Man wrote that the venue “can proudly say that it was responsible for some of the best shows seen in Cork during her oh-too-brief stay on Carey’s Lane”, adding:

I’d like to thank The Pavilion and all its staff for “getting it”. Not many venues do. Anyone involved in putting on or playing a gig will know what I mean.

And journalist Joe Leogue wrote:

Venues aren’t just a shell in which to host a show. To many they encapsulate a time, a place and a people that holds a special place in a collective conscious. Just as great bands continued to come to Cork after Henry’s closed, so too will live music go on here. They just won’t be on in The Pav.

More: Beloved Cork venue The Pavilion has announced it is closing down>