Simon Rattle and the new London concert hall...

[Anastasius]

How on earth can a detailed business case cost £5.5 million ?

I'd have done it for half that figure.

[pastoralguy]

How on earth can a detailed business case cost £5.5 million ?

I'd have done it for half that figure.

Nice work if you can get it...

[Ferretfancy]

The Festival Hall refurbishment cost the best part of £70m, and this has resulted in 1. Slightly better sound but still patchy depending on where you sit. 2. A little more knee room in the stalls seats.

This was achieved by completely destroying and rebuilding the stall floor with a different degree of ramp, filling in the voids in the side walls of the auditorium, raising the ceiling and re-plastering with a more solid material. There is also a new orchestral canopy.

Was it really worth it? I love the building and have been going there since 1952, but I can't really see that this huge cost has been worthwhile.

Jude Kelly seems to have similar wasteful ideas for fixing the QEH complex, but its scope has been reduced

We could have had a grand new hall for a similar price while retaining the existing RFH. It would have kept its shortcomings but would still have been serviceable .

[CGR]

Yes, the Times today reports that the government has decided not to fund the hall, as it did not offer value for money. Reports apparently suggest that £1.25 million of the gvt funding had already been spent; the remainder of the £5.5 million will return to the exchequer. Sadiq Khan says the decision was a "vote of no confidence" in the capital from the gvt. Julian Lloyd Webber was against the project, saying that the money should be spent on ensuring that children from state schools had access to classical music: one can see his point, in a way.

The money would be better spent on music education. London has survived with poor concert halls for years. Do the London concert going population know what a really good hall sounds like ?

When me and the good wife moved to London from Birmingham a couple of decades ago we were amazed at how bad the Festival Hall acoustic was.

[MrGongGong]

The Festival Hall refurbishment cost the best part of £70m, and this has resulted in 1. Slightly better sound but still patchy depending on where you sit. 2. A little more knee room in the stalls seats.

This was achieved by completely destroying and rebuilding the stall floor with a different degree of ramp, filling in the voids in the side walls of the auditorium, raising the ceiling and re-plastering with a more solid material. There is also a new orchestral canopy.

Was it really worth it? I love the building and have been going there since 1952, but I can't really see that this huge cost has been worthwhile.

Jude Kelly seems to have similar wasteful ideas for fixing the QEH complex, but its scope has been reduced

We could have had a grand new hall for a similar price while retaining the existing RFH. It would have kept its shortcomings but would still have been serviceable .

The RFH refurbishment was much more than the things you mention and I don't think it was "wasteful" at all.
There is no need for a "new" hall at all. There are plenty of very good concert halls in the UK as it is.
The nonsensical guff that was produced in support of this vanity project claimed all sorts of "benefits" for the rest of the UK none of which would have happened.
At a time when music education and provision is being destroyed by ignorant bean counters the last thing we need is more things in London.

[MrGongGong]

The money would be better spent on music education. London has survived with poor concert halls for years. Do the London concert going population know what a really good hall sounds like ?

They could try (if you don't like the RFH) Kings Place, Wigmore, Cadogan, Milton Court for a start .....

[teamsaint]

A good camparison might be the new Philharmonie in Paris.

Construction cost trebled from original estimates to over £500m Euros.
It's a very nice place to visit, and I have no idea if Paris really "needed" a nw concert hall.it was supposed to attract young , " non -elitist" audiences , whatever they are. ( The punks I knew back in the 70's, who took their music very seriously , might easily be described as elitist). I wonder if it is achieving this aim ?

I heard Mahler 5 there with a decent orchestra ,and from a random cheapish seat , the acoustic wasn't noticably better than the Barbican or the RFH.

If there was an really good case for this new hall, and the cost associated, I'd be right behind it.

and GG has a good point about other halls in London. There are venues enough in London to fulfill the needs of even the most avid of concert goers, I would have thought. And the big halls often struggle to fill the seats, even with very reasonable ticket pricing.

[Stanfordian]

The RFH refurbishment was much more than the things you mention and I don't think it was "wasteful" at all.
There is no need for a "new" hall at all. There are plenty of very good concert halls in the UK as it is.
The nonsensical guff that was produced in support of this vanity project claimed all sorts of "benefits" for the rest of the UK none of which would have happened.
At a time when music education and provision is being destroyed by ignorant bean counters the last thing we need is more things in London.

Hiya MrGongGong,

It's not unusual for conductors to campaign for new halls in the cities which they conduct. I'm thinking of Jansons in Munich criticising the Philharmonie at the Gasteig built only in 1985. There is no guarantee that a new hall will sound as good as they planners think. The Philharmonie Berlin opened in 1963 and various improvements have been made to the acoustics since. My nearest concert hall the Bridgewater Hall, in Manchester built only in 1996 to my ears seems variable and especially unsympathetic to singers and low instruments like double basses. In my view no better than the hall it replaced the Free Trade Hall. Two of the best acoustics I have heard have been at the Hercules Hall, Munich and the Semper Oper house, Dresden certainly not state-of-the-art buildings.

[VodkaDilc]

The RFH refurbishment was much more than the things you mention and I don't think it was "wasteful" at all.
There is no need for a "new" hall at all. There are plenty of very good concert halls in the UK as it is.
The nonsensical guff that was produced in support of this vanity project claimed all sorts of "benefits" for the rest of the UK none of which would have happened.
At a time when music education and provision is being destroyed by ignorant bean counters the last thing we need is more things in London.

I have been considering writing a succinct response to these issues over the weekend - but Mr GG has expressed my views far better than I could ever do. It would have been embarrassing to have millions spent on a new concert hall in London, when there are so many parts of the UK without one. Has there been a response from Sir Simon yet? Will he threaten to stay in Germany?

As for the RFH, I agree that there has been a huge improvement INSIDE the hall. My only complaint is that the public areas seem to be more like a student union bar/library. Ken Livingstone couldn't have wished for anything more anti-elistist; they just do not feel like the public areas of a concert hall.

[Stanfordian]

It's not unusual for conductors to campaign for new halls in the cities they conduct. I'm thinking of Jansons in Munich criticising the Philharmonie at the Gasteig built only in 1985. There is no guarantee that a new hall will sound as good as they planners think.
The Philharmonie Berlin opened in 1963 and various improvements have been made to the acoustics since. My nearest concert hall the Bridgewater Hall, in Manchester built only in 1996 to my ears seems variable and especially unsympathetic to singers and low instruments like double basses. In my view no better than the hall it replaced the Free Trade Hall. Two of the best acoustics I have heard have been at the Hercules Hall, Munch and the Semper Oper house, Dresden certainly not state of the art buildings.

[MrGongGong]

As for the RFH, I agree that there has been a huge improvement INSIDE the hall. My only complaint is that the public areas seem to be more like a student union bar/library. Ken Livingstone couldn't have wished for anything more anti-elistist; they just do not feel like the public areas of a concert hall.

I know what you mean
BUT
What is fantastic is that the RFH is now somewhere where anyone can go rather than just a temple of "classical" music.
If you spend a whole day there you find the people change depending on what is on etc
It might be harder to find a place to sit BUT surely our venues should be like this rather than like an empty airport until 30 mins before a gig?

[VodkaDilc]

I know what you mean
BUT
What is fantastic is that the RFH is now somewhere where anyone can go rather than just a temple of "classical" music.
If you spend a whole day there you find the people change depending on what is on etc
It might be harder to find a place to sit BUT surely our venues should be like this rather than like an empty airport until 30 mins before a gig?

You're right of course. But I can perhaps be allowed a little nostalgia for those calm bar areas of the RFH and the QEH/Purcell Room as they were in the 1960s and 70s - complete with staggered concert start times, so that there was never too much rushing about. (Was it 7.30 at the Purcell Room, 7.45 at the QEH and 8pm at the RFH? I can't be sure, but it resulted in a very relaxed start to a concert.)

[teamsaint]

The SBC/RFH does seem to have created a bit of a( good) problem for itself, with its success in attracting non concert goers to the public areas. ( I bet lots of folk there spend more on drinks than I do on a concert ticket, and I probably spend more on coffee and buns in business meetings that I hold there than I do on a choir seat for a great concert.)

more "free " music going on between 6.00 and 7.30 for concert goers might be part of the answer.

[Simon B]

Now that it appears a likely £0.5bn isn't going to be spent on a new hall, how about 0.2% of that is instead spent to fix one area in which London's three main big halls specialise? As a regular at most of the big venues in England & Wales (with occasional trips north of the border too) I am confident that London's halls constitute an elite in at least one respect. Here, I refer to inconvenient conveniences.

Among the numerous infelicities of the RAH, these stand out. Perhaps due to the intractable problems of no viable extra space in a Grade I Listed Victorian building the only solution is to recognise that intervals need to be 5 mins longer than at other venues to better match supply and demand. That doesn't excuse not cleaning and fixing and ventilating them properly though.

The Barbican operators now seem to be cycling through a set of signs that are displayed in said facilities (bizarrely provided only in the subterranean dungeon zone so far as I've ever been able to tell) which indicate ever-more imminent improvements. The time to commencement of work seems to be subject to exponential decay - never quite reaching the point of something actually happening. How unreasonable is it to expect refurbishment once since the 1980s? Or building some on more than one floor of the building?!

However, the global gold medal award winner, miles ahead in a league all its own in this respect is the RFH. Entering said facilities on the ground floor (ok, it's not at ground level but "slightly below Charing Cross<->Waterloo East line level" doesn't have the same ring) provokes a level of apprehension more appropriate to venturing into their equivalent at the last day of an outdoor festival or, say, an abattoir. Basically it's a case of steeling yourself against the horrors past experience suggests you might be confronted with this time. Ok, I exaggerate a bit... But not much.

The management appear not to have worked out that if you're going to throw open the venue doors to all comers in that location then you've basically just turned it into the central open access latrine and refuge of the passing troubled and/or intoxicated for the planet. Therefore you'd better have a cleaning plan on an industrial scale and stick to it. Or issue the paying punters with biosuits.

Some maintenance wouldn't hurt either. Some places can get away with it. The equivalent in the Grand Theatre in Leeds (like the entire venue actually) appears to have had nothing done to it since the 1970s (formica and lime green paintwork included) but somehow isn't distressed either. It's more preserved in aspic like a Thatcher era time capsule. Presumably it's that famous Yorkshire thrift in action - reflected in respect for what's already there. The RFH meanwhile gets the sort of battering that means that any corners that are neglected for a while soon end up looking like a demolition zone. Someone get several mops, a lot of bleach, a screwdriver and some spare parts please. Got to cost less than £500,000,000 even in London.

It is, clearly, time for my medication, but the management seem to be impervious to such matters and psychological balance has to be restored somehow .

Now back to more refined issues such as acoustics. Short summary: Each of the RAH, RFH and Barbican are fine in this respect - providing you sit in a small subset within the more expensive seats, often at slightly unexpected positions. Otherwise forget it! Clearly however, in a country as knackered as this one appears to be getting by the day there are more pressing things to spend the remaining £499,000,000 on after they've fixed the loos.

[MrGongGong]

Now back to more refined issues such as acoustics. Short summary: Each of the RAH, RFH and Barbican are fine in this respect - providing you sit in a small subset within the more expensive seats, often at slightly unexpected positions..

Really?
Having sat in most places in the RFH before and after the refurb (including on the stage), been to some of the acoustic tests as well as "played about" in the hall when it's empty I can assure you that the most expensive seats don't have the "best" acoustics at all. You might be able to SEE what is happening but for orchestral music the sound from the front of the balcony is much more balanced than in the stalls (for example).
BUT
How many times has Simon Rattle sat where the audience sit ?
HUmmmmmm