A LIVE music revamp worth £10,000 has taken place at a Tiverton pub after they won a music makeover competition.

The Hickory Inn, formerly known as the Barge Inn, was crowned as one of this year’s winners of PRS for Music’s competition.

The new music haven was unveiled by landlord Edward Sproat, landlady Elisha Connolly and sound engineer Liam St Ledger at an invite-only launch party.

Also attending was PRS chairman Guy Fletcher, who has worked as a songwriter penning tunes for Elvis Presley and Frankie Valli. He presented the winning pub’s owners with a gold disc award.

The intimate celebrations featured performances from Devon-born Michael Jackson folk cover band Mad Dog Mcrea and Cornish indie rockers, Brother & Bones.

Edward Sproat and Elisha Connolly said: “The area is quite sparse on music venues, so to have a local venue now with an amazing music system, it’s just great for all the villages around here.

“There is no way we would’ve had this opportunity without PRS, we wouldn’t have gotten to this stage so quickly – a lot of bands don’t have the ability to bring in equipment like this, it will be a real positive thing to get bands that haven’t performed in many venues before.

“They’ll be able to get their foot in the door and have an opportunity to do gigs that they might not have been able to do.”

Now entering its fifth year, the Music Makeover campaign was established by PRS for Music, to give landlords a chance to revamp their pubs and make live music a central part of their local communities.

Guy Fletcher, PRS chairman, said: “Pubs and clubs are still the core business of the music industry, it all starts with a great song, it all starts with a great place to play so we have decided to help create new music venues at ground level and pubs are a great place to do that.”