Bristol Beacon

As Bristol’s largest concert venue, audiences have been enjoying music at Bristol Beacon since 1867. Whilst being Grade II listed, the Bristol Music Trust managed building has benefitted from a recent redevelopment of its foyer and is now undertaking its largest capital project yet. The new project will restore the original Victorian building and provide an entirely refurbished main hall as well as restored second hall. In addition, the cellars will be transformed into a new club and music venue with facilities for music education. Additional work will include an improved get-in, a restaurant and refurbished backstage areas.

Charcoalblue is designing state of the art stage lighting, audio visual and stage engineering systems for the three halls to bring them into the 21st century. All systems are designed to ensure that all spaces can be programmed as heavily as possible to maximise rental income.

The refurbished main hall will include flexible staging to accommodate a range of sizes of orchestra along with the other events that will be programmed in this space. Also, key to the programming of the space is the equipment to allow the rapid transformation of the front stalls from much improved, high-quality theatre seating to a standing area for large rock concerts.

To assist with the speed of turnaround in the second hall and to reduce the storage requirements the staging in this hall is to be made up from similar rostra as are used for the Hall 1 orchestral risers which are stored in place, flush with the surrounding floor, when not required.