INK's own account of turning one, then two

Two archived blog posts, both found among entries the Wayback Machine dates to around 2016 to 2017, describe INK marking its first and second year in business. The first-birthday post opens: So..Ink celebrated it's first birthday during the August Bank holiday weekend and what a party it was. A later post, headed VIP RnB, House and Hip Hop Classics, opens: We near our 2nd birthday here at Ink, another 12 months of VIP RnB, Hip Hop and House has flown by.

Neither post states a full founding date in day-month-year form; both describe the anniversary in terms of the August Bank Holiday weekend and the twelve months either side of it. This note reports the two posts' own wording without converting it into a single calendar date the venue itself never printed.

The first-birthday post's own account

The post's heading, We are one...thank you! Record breaking weekend, huge VIP table waiting list & one huge party!, frames the first anniversary itself as a commercial success story: cocktails were flowing the VIP tables, booths and wristbands sold way in advance, and the bottle service was none stop all night long. Records were broken on the bar, in the post's own words, during that same August Bank Holiday weekend.

The post does not name a specific DJ, performer or guest for the first-birthday party itself, unlike the later weekly-night posts a companion note in this wave covers. It describes the night in terms of ticket sales and bar records rather than a lineup.

Way in advance is the post's own phrase for how early the tables, booths and wristbands sold, suggesting the first birthday was treated as a planned, promoted date rather than a spontaneous one-off, consistent with a venue already confident enough in its own following to sell out ahead of the night itself. None stop all night long, the post's own phrase for the bottle service, reads as a claim about volume and pace rather than a specific count of bottles served.

Nine months before the first birthday: the VIP and tattoo upgrade

A separate post, headed VIP Upgrade, The Terrace, Snow Cones & More!, places itself after an unbelievable 9 months at Ink and describes two changes made at that point: a fully licensed tattoo station, covered in full in a separate note in this wave, and an upgrade to what the post calls one of the slickest VIP areas in Liverpool. Nine months after opening would fall roughly in the first half of the venue's first year, ahead of that first August Bank Holiday anniversary.

Snow Cones is named in the same post's heading but is not described further in the portion of the post visible in this wave's reading; it appears to be a third change introduced around the same nine-month point, alongside the tattoo station and the VIP upgrade.

The VIP area this post describes upgrading is, on the timeline this note has pieced together, the same general VIP and table structure that wave one's own notes on the archived VIP page and the Terrace and Parlour both draw on, though neither of those two notes was written from this particular nine-month post. Snow Cones, left unexplained in the heading, is the one detail from this post that no other source in this wave's reading mentions again.

The second-birthday post, a year further on

The second post, naming the approach of the venue's 2nd birthday, describes the preceding twelve months in broader terms than the first-birthday post: another incredible year with the club consistently offering the busiest nights around week in and week out, and an 85% sell-out rate for VIP tables, a figure a separate note in this wave covers on its own.

This second post is also where the venue describes its Mile High package as having taken over from its Formula One package, the claim a separate note in this wave sets against the 2019 packages page that still lists Formula One for sale. The birthday framing and the package-history claim sit in the same post, written at the same point in the venue's own timeline. A reader coming to this post purely for the birthday story would find the package claim sitting a few sentences later in the same running text, not set apart under its own heading. The same continuous paragraph moves from a birthday reflection to a specific business claim without any visual break marking the shift in subject.

What the two posts agree on

Both posts treat the August Bank Holiday weekend as the anniversary marker, and both frame the anniversary as a milestone worth a dedicated post rather than a passing mention. Both also describe the preceding year in growth terms, more volume, more records, more consistency, rather than naming a single standout event for the year.

Read together, the two posts give a rough shape to INK's early calendar: an opening around the August Bank Holiday period, a tattoo and VIP upgrade roughly nine months in, and a first and second anniversary each marked with its own post on the same site.

Neither post mentions the other by name or links back to it, the same pattern this wave has found between several of INK's own archived pages: each one stands as its own record, with the connections between them visible only once a reader sets more than one page side by side. A reader working through the blog's archive in order, rather than jumping straight to one post, would see this same shape emerge gradually across a full year of entries.

What is missing from both posts

Neither post gives an exact founding day, a founding month beyond August, or a specific year printed as a number in the text this wave has read. The Wayback Machine's own capture dates for the surrounding posts are the only outside anchor available, and this note does not substitute a capture date for a date the venue itself never printed.

Whether the venue marked a third, fourth or later birthday with its own post is not something this wave's reading of the archived blog has found; the two posts covered here are the ones available among the captures this note drew on. The same blog also carries the 2015 press-interview post a separate note in this wave covers, which this note treats as a distinct entry rather than a third birthday post. A fuller history would need more captures than the Wayback Machine happened to keep of this particular blog, and this note works only with what those captures actually preserved, rather than guessing at the shape of whatever gaps remain between them.

Questions

When does INK's own blog say it marked its first birthday?

During an August Bank Holiday weekend, described in the post's own words as a record-breaking party with sold-out tables and bottle service.

What happened roughly nine months into the venue's first year?

A fully licensed tattoo station and a VIP area upgrade, both named in the same archived post, alongside something called Snow Cones.

Does the second-birthday post name a specific date?

No. It describes the approaching anniversary in terms of "another 12 months" rather than printing a calendar date.