It’s a little like getting on a plane, the desire to get more seats in the auditorium than perhaps is comfortable in order to maximise revenue per performance. It’s logical and maybe in some of the older theatres previous generations weren’t as tall as us but whatever the case it still makes for theatre seats that are not as comfortable as they could be.
Living in Lancashire most of my theatre visits are in the county and I just have to tell you about the exception to the rule above that I recently found in Blackburn.
It came about through my wife’s business. She runs networking events for local entrepreneurs who are looking for business networking Lancashire and specifically along the M65 corridor. One of her venues in Blackburn is not so good so a change was in order and it was one of the members of her business networking groups that suggested looking at the Thwaites Empire Theatre.
I have to say that I was quite sceptical but one of the directors of the theatre was willing to show us round and throw in a free performance for us. We watched an excellent production of “Shearer Or Me” but it was the tour of the theatre that really brought the visit to life.
The theatre was originally a cinema constructed in the early 1900s and packed it’s guests in on bench seats for a penny at the front, two at the back and a whole four pence for the balcony. It thrived until the advent of the television and also because it’s not ideally situated for the centre of Blackburn it fell on hard times and was eventually closed. The building lay derelict for many years until 1996 when it was acquired by a number of local businessmen with a vision to restore the theatre to it’s former glory.
Fortunately the men with the vision had plenty of business networking advice and went about securing funding from local businesses and the Blackburn family brewery Thwaites. Lot’s of hard work, five years of planning and £650,000 later and the Thwaites Empire Theatre was born complete with stage, orchestra pit, seating for 180 and of course a hospitality bar. I understand that part of the financial deal with Thwaites is that the theatre takes the brewery beer until the debt is paid off and to give you some idea of the magnitude of Thwaites generosity this won’t be paid off in my lifetime or probably yours. In fact I also understand that if the brewery now makes a bad business deal it’s referred to as a theatre deal!
The stalls used to seat 600 and now seat 180 so you can see how attention to customer comfort has taken precedence over the “bums on seats” mentality at other establishments and it was when sitting down that many people commented that this has to be the theatre with the most comfortable seats in Lancashire. The balcony was eventually completed in 2007 with further donations of £250,000 and to this day the theatre is run not for profit by volunteers.
It’s a beautiful theatre and well worth a visit and you never know, there maybe some business networking events being run there in the future.
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