Thekla

Thekla is a concert venue and club on a ship moored at The Grove, East Mud Dock, in Bristol's Floating Harbour. Built in Germany as a coastal cargo vessel, it carried timber around the Baltic before running aground in Kent in 1974. Ki Longfellow, Vivian Stanshall and their partners bought it in 1982 and brought it to Bristol in 1983.

Performances began on board in 1984 as the Old Profanity Showboat, with theatre, cabaret, comedy and music. That venture ended in 1986, and Peter Jackson and Andrew Price reopened the ship as Thekla in April 1987, with The Cooker and Defcon among its first club nights. In the 1990s it became tied to Bristol's drum and bass and trip-hop scenes, and Portishead, Massive Attack and Roni Size have all played there. Daybrook House Promotions bought and refurbished the venue in 2006, reopening it that October, and DHP Family has run it since.

Thekla holds about 450 people and installed an L-Acoustics system in 2015. Promoters have included Dazed-Muzic, Nu:Motive, The Blast and Dubtendo. A 2019 refit at Albion Dock added a steel hull around the original before the ship returned to its berth, and a Banksy Grim Reaper painted on the hull was removed in 2014 over erosion concerns and now hangs in M Shed.