Wolverhampton Civic Halls manager Mark Blackstock spoke at the Concert Promoters Association Annual Conference in London over the weekend to a crowd of live music promoters at the International Live Music Conference, to showcase the planned £10.4 million refurbishment to the Civic and Wulfrun Halls. The project is funded by the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership Growth Deal and Wolverhampton City Council and is scheduled to begin early in 2016. Both halls will see seated and standing capacity raised, enabling Wolverhampton to host bigger productions and bring tours to the city.

In a press release from Wolverhampton City Council, Mr Blackstock said “We were very pleasantly surprised with the amount of respect we were shown for our venues and what we are striving to achieve here with the refurbishment work. The live entertainments industry is going through huge changes for those who are players – we can consider ourselves a player but there is certainly a challenge ahead for us to remain in the game and progress alongside the changes that are taking place.”

It is anticipated that the Civic Hall refurbishment will be complete in time for the Grand Slam of Darts in November 2016.

For further information, visit the Wolverhampton City Council website.