Barbican Business Events expands venue hire offering with greater access to the Centre’s artistic programme
The Barbican’s commercial events team is expanding its partnership with the venue’s arts department to enhance their offering and entice more people back to the Centre.
Conference and event attendees will now be able to develop conference and meeting itineraries that incorporate elements of the Barbican’s vibrant artistic programme, which includes art exhibitions, cinema screenings, classical and contemporary music, dance and theatre shows, as well as other performing arts.
Jackie Boughton, Head of Business Events at the Barbican comments: “This is great news for all departments at the Barbican. We are seeing a significant increase of enquiries going forward, but many clients are looking for additional ROI and reasons to leave the comfort of their home offices and remote meetings. Attendees need something different if they are going to commit to an in-person event or conference – so adding a visit to a gallery exhibition during a lunch break, an evening performance or content developed in partnership with our team is a strong motivator and adds significant value and reasons to go to a live business event again.”
Due to the Barbican’s diverse arts programme, the inclusion of these elements within a commercial event itinerary is now part of the Barbican’s bespoke offering, available via the Barbican event sales team and subject to ticket availability.
Details of the Barbican’s extensive arts programme can be found at www.barbican.org.uk
About Barbican Business Events
The Barbican is one of the world’s leading conference and international arts venues. Located in the City of London, it is capable of holding meetings from 10-2,000 delegates in its fully equipped concert hall, theatres, conference suites and boardrooms. Barbican Business Events brings together the venue’s expertise in the arts and corporate meetings.
Built as part of London’s Barbican development and officially opened in March 1982 by HM Queen Elizabeth, unlike many other venues, Barbican was specifically built with the dual purpose of holding conferences and arts events presenting a diverse range of art, music, theatre, dance, film and creative learning.
The Barbican’s Business Events team contributes to the venue’s future success. To make the most of the Barbican’s rich culture and heritage, Barbican Business Events was created to bring together their expertise in three very different areas – the arts, creative learning and corporate business. This approach to corporate events is based on stronger, more in-depth partnerships with their artistic, creative learning and development teams in order to bring more creativity and rich content to events.
The Barbican provides a vibrant and inspiring venue for corporate events, conferences, meetings and entertainment. The venue is capable of holding meetings from 10-2,000 delegates in spaces including a concert hall, theatres, a boardroom and conference suites that can accommodate 10-170 delegates and can be adjusted using sound proofed sliding. As part of its wider investment strategy, the Barbican spent £2.2m on a significant refurbishment throughout the Centre in the summer of 2016 including its Frobisher rooms and Level 4. The focus of the Frobisher refurbishment is designed to create an even stronger connection between the Centre’s main conference and meeting facilities and its arts spaces.
About the Barbican
A world-class arts and learning organisation, the Barbican pushes the boundaries of all major art forms including dance, film, music, theatre and visual arts. Its creative learning programme further underpins everything it does. Over a million people attend events annually, hundreds of artists and performers are featured, and more than 300 staff work onsite. The architecturally renowned centre opened in 1982 and comprises the Barbican Hall, the Barbican Theatre, The Pit, Cinemas 1, 2 and 3, Barbican Art Gallery, a second gallery The Curve, public spaces, a library, the Lakeside Terrace, a glasshouse conservatory, conference facilities and three restaurants. The City of London Corporation is the founder and principal funder of the Barbican Centre.
