Reunion to celebrate heyday of former iconic Burnley nightspots Cat's Whiskers and Annabella's will pay special tribute to late DJ Andy Pickles

Andy Pickles, who died last year, flew in from his adopted home of Australia for the Cat’s Whiskers/ Annabella’s reunions held in 2017 and 2019. And, at the next reunion in September, a set of all the classic tunes he used to play while resident DJ at Annabella’s, will be dedicated to Andy.

The reunion is being organised by well known former Cat’s DJs Chris Byrne and Steve Hindley. Chris said: “Andy will be sorely missed, he absolutely loved doing these reunions.

“He was a true gentleman, a lovely bloke and a big family man who was also a great DJ.”

The venue for this year’s reunion, on Friday, September 15th, is the prestigious Burnley Mechanics for the first time ever. The last reunion was held in June, 2019 at Mr Green’s nightspot in Burnley and that was also the planned venue for the 2020 reunion which was due to be held in June that year. But when Covid-19 hit the reunion was called off.

Chris added: “We were gutted to postpone the last reunion planned for 2020 as we did it on the 9th of March which was very early on into the pandemic and everything was still pretty normal at that time. Many thought it would have all blown over by June but little did we know what was to follow.

“I think now the time is right to hold another reunion as people have missed out on so much over the last three years and need to have a good old knees up. These reunions have a wonderful friendly atmosphere and lots of dancing.”

The DJs will be on the main stage, in a similar set up to the Cat’s Whiskers, and there will be large screens with images of the nightclub from back in the day projected onto them. Before the reunion starts, in the downstairs bistro bar, plans are on the cards to serve ‘chicken in a basket’ as that was one of the popular meals sold at the club.

The Swan is the only official pre reunion bar and the main event begins at 8pm. Tickets are available by clicking HERE.