Civic Halls are top of the pops
Released: 9 January 2008
Staff from Wolverhampton City Council’s Civic Halls are celebrating their best year ever.
The flagship Civic Hall, along with the Wulfrun Hall, Little Civic, Civic Bar and St John’s-In-The-Square, hosted just over 500 events in 2007 - almost 100 more than in previous years.
In addition, club nights, corporate events, meetings, conferences and fairs brought the event total nearer 900, with attendance figures on target to beat 2006’s staggering 550,000 people by a long way.
Civic Halls Manager Mark Blackstock said: "The people of Wolverhampton were truly spoiled in 2007 with our programme boasting an unprecedented number of stellar names, from the Kaiser Chiefs, Ian Brown, the Manic Street Preachers and Lily Allen to Jimmy Carr and Russell Brand.”
Other big names to grace the stages in Wolverhampton in 2007 included: Van Morrison; The Feeling; Nine Inch Nails; Kate Nash; McFly; Erasure; Damien Rice; James Taylor; Bloc Party; Paolo Nutini; Editors; Pet Shop Boys; Maximo Park; The Proclaimers; Alan Carr; David Gray; The Human League and Wolverhampton’s own Beverley Knight.
Sport also topped the bill in 2007. Mark said: “We expanded our programme to include more sporting events like the Grand Slam of Darts and boxing, many of which have seen the Civic Hall broadcast to millions on terrestrial and international TV.
"As the Civic Halls enjoy the extra exposure worldwide via television we are looking to find other ways to satisfy the huge demand for live music through multimedia advances.
"With tickets for many big names selling out within hours the movers and shakers in the music industry are turning to live webcasting to satisfy demand beyond the capacity of individual venues and the Civic Halls have stolen a march on most other UK venues by making ourselves webcast-ready very early in the game.
"We trialled webcasting at our annual Battle of the Bands competition, sponsored by Banks, in early 2007, and indie band Ned’s Atomic Dustbin finished off the year with the Civic Hall’s, and possibly the country’s, first pay-per-view concert live on our website.
"The Civic Halls are moving with the times by investing heavily in our online technology to not only bring our customers a wealth of information, but also a hi-tech online booking system for all events.
"We have also invested in barcode technology which now allows customers to print tickets from home and hope to offer the service to mobile phone users, so tickets could soon be beamed direct to your mobile.
"Now we are working hard to make 2008 just as successful, and look forward to welcoming the people of Wolverhampton into our venues."
Issued by the press office.