Summary

What do we plan to do? – The Now – April 2019

Things will start to look different right from the word go – but we ask you to bear with us as this is just an interim phase.

August 2019 – Phase One

There will be major renovations to The Sub Rooms in August which will dramatically improve your experience and enjoyability of the spaces over the next few years.

You’ll enjoy better access and improved arts provision alongside fresher and brighter spaces as you travel through the building with a new café experience and the opportunity to enjoy your coffee outside when the weather permits.

2020 / 2021 – Phase Two

Phase two of the works will see The Sub Rooms serve you better in every way.

There will be new retractable seating in the Ballroom, improved facilities for artists and better provision for staff and the communities who use the building behind the scenes. There will also be an exciting brand new performance space which will enable us to expand our programme to include film and cultural screenings.

Where are we now

Following an extensive community engagement process, detailed plans are now under way. We owe massive thanks to everyone who has donated to the campaign. So far – we have raised £25,000.

The Now – April 2019

Things will start to look different right from the word go – but we ask you to bear with us as this is just an interim phase.

Lighter and brighter pop- up cafe

Enjoy your coffee and cake in lighter, brighter and sunnier surroundings as our Café Bar moves to the front of the building. This quirky pop up style café will create a vibe of its own, as it makes way for more permanent changes due to take place in August as part of the Phase One development of works.

Help us make Phase One Happen

Please help us make Phase One happen. We need to raise:

• £238,773 by August 2019 to deliver phase one
• £1 million by 2021 / 2022 to deliver phase two

You can become part of our success story by donating what you can to help make these renovations happen. Have fun playing with our donation calculator at the top of the page to see how big you can make our heart grow.

Donating to our Better Building Campaign will see you become Sub-Scriber. Click here for more information about what becoming a Sub-scriber means.

August 2019 – Phase One

There will be major renovations to The Sub Rooms in August which will improve your experience over the next few years.

You’ll be able to enjoy better access, and better and brighter spaces as you travel through the building, better café experiences with better alfresco options.

Better access into The Sub Rooms

It is important to us that we are able to welcome everyone to The Sub Rooms and to ensure this is possible we will be adjusting the gradients of the outside steps to provide level access for all. This means that parents with buggies, wheelchair users and anyone who struggles with steps will have easy access into the building.

We will also remove the internal steps and ramp in the main welcome area of The Sub Rooms to ensure that there is level access throughout the ground floor. We will also alter the staircase to offer more space at the bottom of the stairs to improve the experience for wheelchair users and parents and carers with pushchairs.

Better Café Bar in a brighter location

The Sub Rooms isn’t just about arts and culture, it is about helping you make the most of your free time and to help you do that we will be moving the Café Bar into the front of the building, so you can nip in and nip out again to grab your coffee on go. The large windows and lighter and more airy space will improve your quality of time while you are here.
It is important that our spaces remain as flexible as possible, so we plan to use freestanding furniture to create a relaxing lounge area throughout the day and then moved to accommodate a vibrant activity associated with during busy nights in the bar.

Better enjoyment in better spaces

Encouraging everyone to experience arts and culture is our top priority and we always love to see someone’s excitement when they book their tickets. We will be moving our Box Office into the Café Bar area so that people who just pop in for refreshments will be able to find out about our events and can easily book tickets too.

No one likes to queue at the bar, so we are refurbishing the Kendrick Bar at the top of the building to accommodate a longer serving area, which will be positioned at the opposite side of the room so we can serve you more quickly. We will install new doors into the Kendrick Bar and will deliver other adaptations to create a lighter more spacious area so you can enjoy your drinks in increased comfort. We will install a new bridge that runs from The Ballroom to The Kendrick Bar so that your journey to the bar will be easier and quicker.

Better health and safety provision

We want you to enjoy your time at The Sub Rooms, but nothing is more important than your health and safety while you are here. Therefore, we will be replacing the fire lobbies with glazed fire-rated partitions. This will also improve the feeling of space and airiness as you travel through the building.

Better alfresco dining

The Sub Rooms isn’t just about arts and culture, it is about helping you make the most of your free time. As we move the Café Bar to the front of the building, it will be just a short walk to the forecourt, making it easier for you to while away the summer days in true Mediterranean style on the piazza, and then nip back in when the British weather lives up to expectations.

We are also resurfacing the flooring to the balcony at the front of the building to bring this wonderful outside space back into use.

Better arts provision

We want to maximise every opportunity to celebrate arts and culture. We will be installing bi-fold doors either side of the welcome area to ensure that the wall spaces are unobstructed, but can still be used as exhibition and display spaces.

We are keen to celebrate the original concept of the building. To do this we will remove the modern partitions on the stairs to reinstate the original form of the stair case.The original floor tiles in the welcome space will also be reinstated so you can experience the heritage of the building when you first come in.

Help us make Phase One Happen

• We need to raise £254,584 by August 2019 to deliver phase one
• We need to raise £1.1 million by 2021 / 2022 to deliver phase two

You can become part of our success story by donating what you can to help make these renovations happen. Have fun playing with our donation calculator at the top of the page to see how big you can make our heart grow.

Donating to our Better Building Campaign will see you become Sub-Scriber. Click here for more information about what becoming a Sub-scriber means

2020/2021 – Phase two

Phase two of the works will see The Sub Rooms serve you better in every way.

There will be better arts provision in The Ballroom, better seating, better facilities for artists and performers and better provision for staff and the communities who use the building behind the scenes.

Better arts provision

It is important that we are able to programme a real variety of events, from main stream popular culture, through to smaller pieces of work that celebrate and showcase artistic excellence and cutting-edge performances.

To do this we will install a highly flexible system of acoustic curtains in The Ballroom and will upgrade the existing suspended lighting and audio-visual grid. This will allow us to create different performance spaces and have better control over acoustic quality and lighting levels, so you can really immerse yourself in the performances that you are seeing.

We will install new fully retractable tiered seating for 184 people which will improve your view of the performances, and yet still remain flexible to create standing arena space for music gigs. Additional seating will also be installed so that people with additional needs and wheel chair users will have improved access.

We want to offer a variety of artistic events from including performance, film and exhibitions. There will be new panelling in The George Room to improve acoustics for events, modernised AV equipment to screen films, retractable and tiered cinema style seating, and a collapsible stage so that you have a choice of events to attend at any one time.

Better access for disabled performers

It is important to us that we welcome everyone and that includes the range and variety of performers that we welcome to our stage. We will install a new portable platform lift to the side of our stage so that we can welcome performers with disabilities and increase the breadth of programme that we are able to you offer our audiences.

Better sight lines from the balcony

Everyone likes to be comfortable regardless of where they sit. We will push the existing rows of seats forwards and will reconfigure the steps to increase the space on the upper level of the balcony. We will also replace the modern handrail with a more sympathetic design, which will prevent any distraction between the sightline and the performance and your view of the stage is improved.

Better provision for artists and staff

It is important that our artists and staff are able to enjoy their time at The Sub Rooms as much as our audiences. We will reconfigure the back of house spaces to provide improved dressing room spaces for our artists and improved office spaces for our staff. We want to ensure that our staff are happy and healthy while they work here and that our performers want to come back.

Help us make phase one happen

• We need to raise £254,584 by August 2019 to deliver phase one
• We need to raise £1.1 million by 2021 / 2022 to deliver phase two

You can become part of our success story by donating what you can to help make these renovations happen. Have fun playing with our donation calculator to see how big you can make our heart grow.

Donating to our Better Building Campaign will see you become Sub-Scriber. Click here for more information about what becoming a Sub-scriber means