Southbank Centre consists of Royal Festival Hall, Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall (containing the Purcell Room), and The Saison Poetry Library. Their wide-ranging artistic programme – classical and world music, rock and pop, jazz, dance and performance, literature and the visual arts – attracts the most diverse audience of any UK venue.
From the grandeur of the Royal Festival Hall auditorium, to the intimate surroundings of the Sunley Pavilion, Southbank Centre has a venue to meet your needs. As well as the three auditoria (Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room) there is a wide variety of meeting and reception rooms to accommodate everything from AGMs to award ceremonies, wine tastings to weddings.
Royal Festival Hall was built in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain; London had been without a major concert hall following the destruction of the Queen’s Hall by an incendiary bomb in 1941. After only an 18-month build and expenditure of £2 million, Royal Festival Hall opened on 3 May 1951 with a ceremonial concert attended by King George Vl and Queen Elizabeth.
Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, the two smaller auditoria, were opened by Her Majesty The Queen in March 1967 and Hayward Gallery (named after the late Sir Isaac Hayward, the then leader of the London County Council) opened in July 1968.
The concert halls were originally funded and managed by the London County Council and their successors, the Greater London Council. The Centre became an independent arts organisation in April 1988 after two years operating as a constituent part of the Arts Council.
In 1988 Royal Festival Hall was awarded the status of a Grade 1 Listed Building.
In June 2007 Royal Festival Hall reopened following a two-year, £11 million refurbishment project, which brought the building, and auditorium in particular, up to 21st century standards of comfort, ease-of-access and technological excellence, while at the same time retaining the magnificent 1950s look and design, including many of the original features.