We’re reimagining our historic auditorium this Culture Night by ‘flipping’ the venue and creating a large dance floor area.

Funded through the Arts Council’s Capacity Building Support Scheme, the new ‘Backstage’ venue will involve the construction of a removeable stage in the centre of the main, ground floor auditorium for bands to play on, and the provision of a 180-capacity seating/ dance floor space for audiences on the existing stage, facing out towards the auditorium. The new venue will be launched on Culture Night, Friday, 22^nd September, with live gigs from some of Waterford’s leading emerging and established musicians.

Our technical manager Dermot Quinn says ‘flipping’ the historic venue will open the theatre up to a plethora of new live music events:

“One thing we’ve never been able to offer our artists or our audiences is a dedicated dance floor and so this new venue option will open up a whole range of possibilities for live gigs. It will bridge the gap between our current 90-capacity Backstage venue and our 432-seat auditorium, offering excellent sight-lines from every part of the space and giving us the potential to host a variety of up-and-coming bands from multiple genres whose fans want to get up and dance, rather than sit at a gig.”

Culture Night at Theatre Royal starts at 4pm with a Music Generation Waterford ‘House Takeover’, featuring live gigs in the theatre’s Backstage venue, vestibule and bar with almost 100 young musicians from a range of genres, including Music Generation Waterford’s Wind Band, Trad and Harp ensembles, a songwriters’ corner and young rock bands.

This will be followed by a late night gig in the new Backstage venue by Waterford bands Shane Barry & the Silver South Ensemble, Cal Pacino with special guests, and 2Time Charlie from 10pm.

Get your tickets for the late night gig here