VENUEWATCH: Queen's Hall

Edinburgh's Queens Hall won't make it out the other side of this decade, as the local council plan to replace it with a new venue.

The city burghers are convinced that a brighter, more expensive, waterfront venue will do better than the current one; they've agreed to pump in £150,000 a year to keep the place alive while a new venue is built.

The Queens Hall was only opened in 1979; the council reports people who go to concerts and gigs at the venue are less-than-delighted by their experiences.

We're not sure that's entirely true - Falling Sky describes it as a "funny little venue"; World of Boober went to see a classical event there and didn't mind the venue so much as the audience (packed with the Ageing Middle Class: polo-necked and bolt-upright attentive, or tweedy and dozing-off blissfully.") - but then there's much more excitement for a council in opening a new venue than in fine-tuning an old one; and - hey - it's not like it's their money, is it?

Having said that, it's probably ten years since we saw a gig in Edinburgh, so we'd be interested if people will be excited to dance a jig on the grave of the QHE?

music venuewatch queens hall edinburgh