Royal Albert Hall boss Craig Hassall: 'I want to turn Royal Albert Hall into king of daytime destinations'

A cafe culture, hall of fame and art gallery are only part of new boss Craig Hassall’s vision to transform the Victorian institution into a 21st-century attraction, he tells Jonathan Prynn
Access all arias: New boss Craig Hassall
Andy Paradise

It is one of the world’s most treasured music venues, renowned for its magical series of evening Proms concerts that are a highlight of the London summer.

But during the day the 146-year-old Royal Albert Hall is often quiet and largely deserted, apart from rehearsals and the occasional school party tour padding its corridors.

Now the new Australian boss of the Kensington auditorium has unveiled his vision to turn it into a thriving all-day cultural destination, from breakfast to late into the night, to match the Sydney Opera House.

In his first major interview since his appointment in May, chief executive Craig Hassall told the Standard of his ambition to make the Grade I listed building less intimidating and persuade more people to hang around longer.

It follows research showing that visitors to “The Hall” — where performers this autumn will include opera singer Katherine Jenkins, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pop group Busted — come only once every five years on average and often do not eat or drink on the premises.

Mr Hassall, a former head of Opera Australia who was also an artistic adviser to the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, said: “We are blessed, like the Natural History Museum and the V&A, to have these imposing Victorian buildings but they don’t exactly say ‘come in’. We want to say, ‘Please come in, come in and enjoy yourselves and stay as long as you like’. We are under-utilised during the day. That’s our challenge.

“It should be a place where you have a bite to eat and drink before you see the show then have a drink afterwards and make it a whole evening experience. We’re not a museum, we’re an entertainment venue, we’ve got to be current.” The first phase of the transformation is a £37 million project known as the Great Excavation. It will create one of London’s biggest basements and allow for a new double-height cafe and bar and a new interactive archive provisionally known as the “Royal Albert Hall of Fame” to be opened in space largely used for backstage storage.

Museums that stay open late

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However, Mr Hassall, who also ran the English National Ballet, said this was only the start of his plan for making better use of the Royal Albert Hall as it approaches its 150th anniversary in 2021. Ideas include another new cafe at the main entrance “to make it much more active during the day. It feels a bit like the back door now. It would animate that space and could make it really busy”.

The 52-year-old also wants to create a permanent art gallery in the amphitheatre corridor to celebrate the work of artists with a music connection, such as Yoko Ono, Ronnie Wood and Peter Blake.

Other aspirations include a wider pedestrian crossing across Kensington Gore linking the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial. Mr Hassall says he would also like to pedestrianise the area around the hall to make it “a pleasanter and safer place to be” and create a new underground performance space filling the gap between the 5,700-capacity main auditorium and the secondary venue, the Elgar Room, which only holds 300.

Another ambition is a huge increase in merchandising of the venue, which receives no government funding. Mr Hassall said: “You could have a Royal Albert Hall tea-caddy or stilton pot, it’s the perfect shape. Imagine a Royal Albert Hall gin bottle, it would be great. We could have bees on the roof. It ought to be a really great experience for everyone coming to the building. It’s kind of the nation’s village hall — it’s for everyone in the country.”@JonPrynn

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