Another One Bites the Dust!

Locals to ‘Mecca’ Song and Dance About It?

Online bingo is positively booming, you only need to take a look at the promotions that are running to see that. We’ve seen brand-new cars won in recent weeks and there are still epic prizes to be won (check out our news section!), including a home makeover worth £2K to five lucky winners as well as electric bikes and top of the range activity monitors, however, land-based bingo is suffering.

A little over a year ago, Buzz Bingo made an announcement that shocked just about everyone – a total of 26 bingo halls would close for good with more than 570 jobs lost. In 2021, more unannounced and unexpected venues closed permanently too, and while we all look forward to getting back to some sort of normality, one area of England won’t be – and that area is Bedford.

No Celebrations Here

To raise everybody’s spirits, a National Bingo Day of celebration was announced in March of this year and will see many venues up and down the country – even rival clubs, pooling together their resources to make it a day to remember and that day is June 27^th. Planning ahead is key due to restrictions on venue visitor numbers, only, Mecca Bingo in London Road, Bedford won’t be taking part. Ever!

As many venues in England and Wales get ready to open their doors to the bingo dabbing community, Mecca’s Bedford establishment won’t and has put out a statement for all locals: “On behalf of everyone at Mecca Bingo in Bedford, we are very sad to confirm that we will not be reopening our club in May and will be closing permanently,” said operations director, John Dyson. “Mecca Bedford has been a part of the local community for many years, and we want to say a huge thank you to every single one of our incredible customers for their loyalty and support – we will miss you very much.”

Comments on the Facebook page for this club are comments of utter shock with many asking where they will go to play bingo now. One user raised an important query which to this day has been left unanswered: “So for people that had money left on their max, what happens as it doesn’t transfer to another club?” The only thing I can suggest is to contact Mecca Bingo online via the live chat feature because despite the following post on social media: “We will be keeping this page open for the coming month, and we are happy to help with any queries you might have,” nobody seems to be getting any answers. Or, you could always head to the main Facebook page.

Source: “Closure of London Road Mecca Bingo Confirmed”. BedfordIndependent. April 7, 2021.