Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar Owners Bid To Save The Tote, Tattoo Crowdfunders' Names

Shane Hilton and Leanne Chance, the owners of The Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar in Melbourne’s CBD, are putting in a bid to save the iconic Collingwood music venue, The Tote.

Both The Tote and Last Chance have hosted numerous punk, rock, metal, and alternative acts like The White Stripes, Mudhoney, Violent Soho, Courtney Barnett, You Am I, Press Club, and Porpoise Spit at their venues; they’re essential grounds for up-and-coming artists to find their sounds. 

Last month, Hilton and Chance started a Pozible crowdfunding campaign, informing anyone who wants to get involved that they have done everything they can to make up half the savings to buy The Tote - the asking price is $6 to 6.6 million - by hustling and going into debt with banks, family and pulling from their own savings. 

The couple has managed to save $3 million. The Last Chance To Save The Tote campaign ends in 19 days, and right now, it’s at $1,520,200 - the halfway mark of its $3 million target.

Today, the pair posted on Facebook, “We are officially negotiating the final sale of the Tote. It will be a live music venue forever. This has happened because of you. Because of the music community. And now we need all of you more than ever. We’re at 50% of the Pozible Campaign target. Now’s the time we need to get it to 100%.”

The Pozible campaign is run with an “all or nothing” fundraising approach, meaning that crowd funders won't be charged unless Hilton and Chance win their bid for The Tote. 

The music-loving pair took over the Last Chance in 2016. If successful with this endeavour, they promise to protect The Tote by “putting the building in trust with so much red tape, caveats and legal protection that it can never be anything but a live music venue, let alone sold ever again.” 

The couple aims to give “the Tote to the bands of Melbourne forever. No fuckers gunna touch one of those posters on that tobacco-stained ceiling.”

In a new interview with The Guardian, Hilton revealed that he’s tattooed crowd-funders' names as part of his promise to life membership donors.

Right now, in terms of the life membership promise of tattoos, Hilton has over 70. “I’ve got over 650 still to be tattooed on me,” he told The Guardian. 

“I’ve got plenty of room; I’ve only got one whole leg, a thigh and my buttocks. Even if we fail, it’ll be a reminder of how strong the community is.”

You can contribute to the Pozible campaign to save The Tote here.