Lot Essay
This concert was the Beatles' first live performance in the south of England however due to a major blunder it was unadvertised and apparently only attracted an audience of 18 people. According to Mark Lewisohn, the idea behind the Aldershot engagement was a shrewd one, Liverpool promoter Sam Leach realized that no London agents or record company scouts would come to Liverpool, he therefore decided to take various Liverpool groups to see them. ...Fine, in principle; in reality, Leach's geographical familiarity with the south of England was somewhat wayward, and instead of choosing a venue in Greater London he ended up booking ...the Palais Ballroom in Aldershot, a military outpost 37 miles south-west of the capital. Not suprisingly, his optimistic invitations to London's top pop impresarios went unheeded... To make the situation worse an advertisement for the event was left out of the local paper due to another mix up.