Published on Wednesday, 19th April 2023
The Halls is set to benefit from improvements to create an iconic venue which is an active and dynamic cultural centre for Norwich.
Following Norwich City Council’s successful bid for Town Deal funding in 2020, the project to upgrade The Halls received £3.6m. The renovations will transform The Halls, a unique city centre heritage asset, into a multi-use performance venue and enable Norwich to capitalise on the rapidly growing cultural economy in the city.
Upgrades to the venue will be achieved by investing in the facilities, including audio visual equipment and lighting, a major redesign to improve flow and accessibility, a revamp of the outside space, and an enhanced café and bar offer.
Norwich has a strong existing cultural landscape and this project to develop The Halls will support the wider cultural provision in the city, as well as contributing to the Norwich 2040 Vision aims to be a creative, fair, liveable, connected, and dynamic city.
Creating a high quality, multi-use venue at The Halls is part of the city council’s ongoing work and collaboration with cultural partners to open up more spaces, attract a greater variety of arts and culture, and increase the overall number of events - appealing to wider audiences and broadening the cultural activities on offer in Norwich.
Essential structural work will also be completed alongside the refurbishment project. These include work to the roof, stained glass windows and secondary glazing in St Andrew’s Hall.
To carry out these improvements, The Halls will need to close for about 12 months. This means The Halls will not be available to hire from 1 January 2024, however all bookings up to 31 December 2023 will go ahead as normal.
The Halls is also available for any new bookings up to 31 December 2023, subject to availability.
A spokesperson for Norwich City Council, said:
“The Halls is a hugely important and unique heritage building that contributes so much to the fantastic cultural offer we have in Norwich. By carrying out these upgrades, we’re excited about the potential to create an iconic venue that will host community and cultural events for many years to come.
“We look forward to sharing our plans in more detail later in the year and will be keeping everyone that makes use of The Halls up to date as the project progresses. But if you do have any questions about the plans, please get in touch.”
If you have any questions about a booking, please get in touch with the team at The Halls: thehalls@norwich.gov.uk
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