One northern music hall entrepreneur to challenge the Stoll and Moss Empires was Tom Barrasford, the son of a Newcastle publican. He was the pioneer of 'two houses a night' , champion of rock-bottom prices and the creator of a tour of fourteen halls in four years - a truly remarkable achievement.
Impressed by the Thornton-Moss venture at the Royal Scotch Arms in Newcastle in 1890, Barrasford took over a wooden circus on the Ormond pit-heap in Jarrow and turned it into the Jarrow Palace of Varieties in 1895. Expansion began in 1899 in Leeds. Barrasford's twice-nightly system was almost unknown at that time, though it had been done at the Wear Music Hall in the 1870s for 'Champagne Charlie' - George Laybourne. It proved a great success in Leeds, and Barrasford made that city his base, though the Jarrow Palace was kept going. Barrasford now extended his operations to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool, calling his new theatres 'Hippodrome'.

Barrasford had a personal vendetta with the humourless Sir Oscar Stoll, then chairman of a vast syndicate of music halls, and resolved to build his own theatres, bigger and better than the existing Moss and Stoll Empires. The process began with the Liverpool Hippodrome and the Newcastle Pavilion opened in Westgate Road in 1903, the bill topped by Madame Belle Cole, the noted Tyneside contralto.
Barrasford's rivalry with Stoll continued in London. The lack of a drinks licence seriously hampered business, however, and Barrasford transferred the centre of his activities to Brighton. By now, the strain was telling on Barrasford, always known in the profession as the Born Hustler. In addition to his music hall activities, forever dashing to the continent to catch some new act, Barrasford was a prominent figure in the racing world and invented the 'Barrasford Gate' a starting device which was taken up by the Jockey Club. He also had a hand in the 'Barrascope', an early form of the cinematograph, and it was installed in all his music halls. Barrasford was convinced of the future of 'pictures'. One of Music Hall's most remarkable personalities, he died on 1 February 1910 at Hippodrome House, Brighton.