Salisbury City Hall

The largest entertainment venue in Wiltshire, Salisbury City hall can accommodated 953 people (or 1255 standing) in a flexible auditorium.

With the existing seating, both retractable and removable, having reached the end of its life, we were delighted to be chosen to provide replacements. Our new installation includes a 15-row retractable unit with 553 ‘Espace 628’ seats and 470 stacking ‘Venue 128’ chairs.  

As well as the obvious and striking visual upgrade, staff at the venue now benefit from a number of operational improvements. The stacking chairs are lighter, reducing strain on the operators, as well as set-out times. On the retractable platforms, the chairs no longer have to be folded down by hand – instead they fold down automatically as the platforms close. They can also be lifted into place again much more quickly – in groups of 11 rather than 3. The retractable system is also specially designed so it can be opened with the full 15 rows, with 8 rows, or even 4 rows. This creates many more possible seating configurations, allowing the venue to potentially attract more events.  

Phill Smith, General Manager of the venue said, “The feedback we’ve had from audience members has been really good. In terms of operation, the retractable tiering works brilliantly. The partial opening system has given us some very useful new options. We’ve already used the unit partially open for one event – which the promoter has already re-booked.”