Kings Hall, Manchester

Kings Hall was a music venue located at the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens in Manchester, England. It opened in 1910 as a tea room, then enlarged in 1928 and reconstructed as a "saucer like arena" capable of seating 7,000 people.[1][2] The name "Kings" was chosen in reference to the two kings who reigned during the six-week period of its construction: George V and Edward VII. The hall was designed to stage "Demonstrations, Exhibitions, Social Gatherings, etc",[3] and was a popular concert venue until the 1970s, with appearances by artists such Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.[4] The Kings Hall became home to the Hallé Orchestra in 1942, when its previous base, the Free Trade Hall, was damaged by bombing during the Manchester Blitz; the orchestra continued to perform concerts at Belle Vue for more than 30 years.[5] The last piece of live music heard there, on 14 February 1982, was played by the Glossop School Band, who were taking part in the North West Amateur Brass Band Championship.[6]

From 1961 until 1966, bingo sessions were held in the hall. Able to accommodate up to 3,500 players, it was advertised as the "largest bingo club in the world". Many exhibitions were also held in the hall, which with its 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) of floor space was one of the largest venues outside London. It was split into three separate halls in 1956, to allow three exhibitions to be run simultaneously.[7]

The final event staged in the Kings Hall was the North West Amateur Brass Band Championship, on 14 February 1982, in front of a crowd of 1,700. The hall had been sold 18 months earlier to a development company, Espley Tyas Development Group, and was by then scheduled for demolition to allow the site to be redeveloped. News of the sale had triggered the formation of local action groups, who organised a petition signed by 50,000 people in an unsuccessful effort to save the hall.[4] The exhibition halls were sold to Mullet Ltd. in 1983, but competition from the newly opened G-Mex exhibition and conference centre in central Manchester led directly to their closure. The site was sold to the British Car Auction Group in 1987, and the buildings demolished to make way for a large car auction centre.[8]

References

Notes

    Citations

    1. ↑ Cronin & Rhodes 1999, p. 122
    2. ↑ Tyrwhitt-Drake (1946), p. 60
    3. ↑ Stackhouse & Hyams (2005), p. 73
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Stackhouse & Hyams (2005), p. 72
    5. ↑ Cronin & Rhodes (1999), p. 36
    6. ↑ Stackhouse & Hyams (2005), p. 86
    7. ↑ Cronin & Rhodes (1999), p. 124
    8. ↑ Stackhouse & Hyams 2005, p. 124
    9. ↑ "British Open Brass Band Championships", British Open Brass Band Championships, retrieved 21 July 2010
    10. ↑ Osuh, Chris (7 April 2008), "Bring Back Belle Vue", Manchester Evening News, retrieved 28 July 2010
    11. ↑ "Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, Manchester, England History", Parks and Gardens UK, retrieved 20 July 2010
    12. ↑ "Bobs, Belle Vue Park", Rollercoaster Database, retrieved 22 November 2007

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