The Piece Hall: Artists are approaching us to ask if they can play here!
By CEO of The Piece Hall Trust, Nicky Chance-Thompson
MBE, DL
We sold 190,000 tickets for Live at The Piece Hall and over 25,000 people came to Calderdale Pride!
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Hide AdIt’s fantastic that our iconic building is growing in profile and reputation and that so many music lovers are getting to have magical moments with their favourite artists in this unique location.
There are some other numbers I would like to share with you too, the amount of people who get to see and hear about The Piece Hall who may not yet have visited us or come to a show.
Almost 900 articles were written about our summer season in newspapers, magazines and on websites, meaning a whopping 236 million people around the world had the chance to learn about our incredibly cultured corner of Calderdale.
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Hide AdSixteen million people saw pictures and text posted on The Piece Hall’s own social media channels in just three months, showing just how spectacular this building is as a venue. We hope many of these people will consider a trip here soon to browse the shops, eat and drink and take in the views.
As well as featuring in the media, we are getting more of that invaluable promotion, word of mouth, from some very important people. Debbie Harry from Blondie said The Piece Hall was “beautiful, just one of the best venues”, Sheryl Crow said: “The Piece Hall is a crazy beautiful place!” and Richard Ashcroft compared us to a much-loved European city: “‘I’ve not been to a place like this since I was in Verona. Such a beautiful place.”
So perhaps it’s no surprise that during recent discussions with our co-promoters about the 2025 line-up I was told something very unusual is happening when it comes to bookings for The Piece Hall. Often, they don’t even have to ask artists to come here, the bands are actually approaching us to ask if they can play here! What an amazing accolade for a heritage site in a northern market town which just a few short years ago was putting on no more than a handful of shows each year.
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Hide AdAs well as these numbers we’ve just had another exciting outcome from the summer shows as we’ve just hosted our very first Live Events Skills Bootcamp facilitated by the Academy of Live Technology. The team from production Park in Wakefield took over The Caygill Rooms for two weeks to deliver free training to people wanting to get a foot on the first rung of the ladder in the events industry.
The course sits within The Piece Hall Academy, an umbrella term for a number of projects and courses to help train, educate, and develop the next generation of creatives as part of our commitment to supporting the future of arts and culture in the region.
Areas covered included sound engineering, lighting design and operation, rigging and stage design and event safety, all with hands-on practice. Who knows, we could well be welcoming some of them back to work on our amazing shows next year!
Keep your eyes peeled for more big announcements of global artists heading to perform in our beautiful courtyard next summer, some of whom have invited themselves!