The Corn Exchange Turns Ninety And Opens Its Doors

The Corn Exchange Turns Ninety And Opens Its Doors

The Corn Exchange is ninety this year, and to mark it the building is opening parts of itself the public has not been into since the seventies.

Three open days, on the last weekend of September, with free tickets released a fortnight before.

What you get to see

The roof void, which is the reason the acoustic is what it is and which almost nobody has been up into.

The old grain floor, now a storage space and mostly full of scenery.

And the projection room from the years the building was a cinema, which still has two of the original machines in it, neither of which works.

There are short talks on the hour about the building's history, given by people who know it rather than by an actor in a costume, which we think is the right call.

Ninety years of what, exactly

It opened in 1936 as a corn exchange and market hall. Since then it has been a cinema, a dance hall, a bingo hall, a snooker club and, for eleven memorable months in the eighties, a carpet showroom. It became a theatre and music venue properly in 1994.

The building has been threatened with demolition twice. The second time, in 1989, the campaign that saved it collected signatures from about a fifth of the town.

The autumn season

Announced last week and on sale now. The anniversary concert on the Saturday night is a mixed bill with Northgate Brass, a choir, and three acts we are not allowed to name yet.

Tickets

Free for the open days but ticketed, because the roof void holds twelve people at a time and they mean it. They go live on the venue's website on Monday 14 September.

Tomas is doing the drive show from the foyer on the Friday of the open weekend, which will either work beautifully or be a disaster.