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Palladium introduces standing area

News
8 May 2018

THE LONDON Palladium will begin hosting standing-area concerts for the first time from next year, with a four-week run of shows.

By removing the seats in the stalls area, venue owner Really Useful Theatres (RUT) will increase the Grade II listed theatre’s seated concert capacity from 2,273 to 2,750 with standing and seating.

RUT MD Rebecca Kane Burton, who joined the company from The O2 in 2016, says the initiative had sparked considerable interest from agents and promoters, including CAA, ITB, AEG Presents and Kilimanjaro Live.

“Our standing season will run from 18 March until mid-April,” she says. “We picked that time after consulting all the key promoters and agents. We would like to have a repeat standing season in the autumn, but we will see how the first one goes.”

Kilimanjaro Live CEO Stuart Galbraith says he is looking to run a short series of opening shows to celebrate the launch of the standing season.

“It is a hugely exciting development for the contemporary live music scene because since the demise of the Astoria [2,000, closed in January 2009] as a standing venue we have really not had a central London standing location that we can use,” he says.

Last year saw RUT recruit former Roundhouse head of music Dave Gaydon as head of programming and Koko’s Mike Hammer as venue manager.

Gaydon says 98 concerts were staged at the venue in the last financial year, up 20 per cent year-on-year.

Among artistes that performed at the venue recently are Coldplay, Bob Dylan, 10cc and Morrisey, with forthcoming shows featuring Bryan Ferry, Gary Barlow, Gaz Coombes and Alexandra Burke.

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