Waterfront Hall celebrates ten years of success

Northern Ireland’s world renowned and only purpose-built conference venue, the Belfast Waterfront Hall is celebrating 10 years of success.

Its triumph has been further confirmed by a recent survey which demonstrated that for every Pound Sterling invested in the Hall by Belfast City Council, £10 has been generated in wider economic benefits for the city. This amounts to more than £432 million generated by the venue its first ten years of operation.

The Hall’s success over the past 10 years has been mirrored by a dramatic decade of transformation all over Belfast city and across Northern Ireland due to major infrastructural investment, while hotel accommodation availability and air routes have also improved.

Belfast was awarded the best conference destination in the UK by Business Britain in 2005 and more recently the province was featured in the ‘Go-List’ section of the Lonely Planet Bluelist as one of the top ten ‘Must-See’ countries in the world in 2007.

Owned and managed by Belfast City Council, the architecturally stunning Waterfront Hall with its state-of-the art conference and concert facilities, was the catalyst for Belfast’s prestigious, multi-million pound Laganside business development, which has been right at the heart of the city’s economic, social and recreational renaissance.

When the Waterfront Hall first opened its doors in 1997, it was envisaged that conference and business would represent approximately 20% of the venue’s overall activities. While there has been major growth within all aspects of the venue’s activities, conference and business now represents about 40% of the total. Looking forward, major contracts have been secured into 2010.

The Waterfront is equally renowned as a world-class entertainments venue. Thanks to the Hall, the world’s top performers and finest touring companies now make Belfast a regular stop on their international schedules.

Over the past ten years the venue has not only been able to attract many of the world’s leading artists from Sting, Robbie Williams and Tony Bennett to the Russian Ballet of St Petersburg and the Kirov Opera, but has been a major participant in, and facilitator of, many of the city’s festivals.

(JM/SP)