We're not Leeds, unfortunately we have nowhere near their catchment, that's why their city centre doesn't have prime retail units sat empty(despite the rents being over double ours) and why we couldn't regularly fill a 10,000 capacity arena. I'd agree that the proposed 3,500 capacity arena is really too small(the Ice Arena already has a 3,750 capacity), but if they just bump that to 5,000 then it would be ideal, anything bigger than that would likely cause us problems. Until we sort something, we should just work more with Brid Spa, it's a great venue.
It's got nothing to do with rugby league. There are 6 10,000+ arenas within about 2 hours of Hull, big acts rarely play them all, usually just one or two. Hull has the smallest catchment area of any of those cities, the worst location geographically and the worst transport links. Why would a promoter risk putting their concert on in Hull when they have safer, easier options to the north, south and west of it? If it was viable and realistic then it would be great, but it just isn't.
If you can't see why Leeds and Manchester are different to Hull then you have even less vision than the council your criticising.
Boutique hotel. It's got a bit of Art Deco feel to the outside. Terrible that it has been empty since the 90s.
Is Newcastle, for example, really in a better location Geographically? People always use this excuse for Hull but it's not at the extreme north end of the country with little else nearby like Newcastle is, and they seem to do fine up there. As well as that, there are people from Hull who go to Leeds or Meadowhall to do their shopping, and use that as a stick to beat Hull with, but still insist Hull is too far away from these central cities to be relevant. You can't have it both ways.
Y I agree - People say Hull is the end of the world. The infrastructure to get here is pretty good. Anyone who has tried getting to Norwich quickly will know this.
Whilst I agree Newcastle is isolated from the rest of the country it is surrounded by Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Gateshead, Darlington and Durham, giving it a huge catchment area, you could probably include most of Cumbria and the SE of Scotland in that. Hull's catchment area is soon taken by Leeds to the West and Sheffield to the South (and to an extent Newcastle to the North). Ironically Newcastle's isolated position is actually an advantage because there's no other competitors nearby.
People make out as though you'd never go as far as Hull from anywhere else in the the country. But they don't say it about Newcastle which is two hours north of all the other big cities.
They've finally put in the last bit of dualling in the A11, so it's possible to get from London (M11/A11), which is no surprise. However, getting in via the A47 or A17 is a complete pig.....
Newcastle have 2.5m people within 40 miles of them, people don't need to go anywhere, it's on their doorstep, that's the point.
Typical small minded thinking. I know Hull isn't a Leeds or a Manchester and that is half the attraction. I saw every one, bar one, of the big concerts the KC held. And at every one I was with people who had travelled to Hull from all over the country, most of them also stopping over in local hotels. People will travel if the act and the venue is worth the trip. Distance isn't a problem. Also Hull isn't on a desert island. I agree with your comments about Brid Spa, it is a fabulous venue. I was there for the Paul Heaton gig recently. Pity we haven't anything like it in the City of Hull. Grimsby get bigger name acts then we see in Hull. If you think anything more then a 5,000 seat arena isn't feasible in a city and port the size of Hull with a catchment area of a million people within half an hours drive then I have suspicions that you are either Geraghty's agent or a relation of his. It's like the KC stadium, put the extra seats in, make them readily available at the right price and people will come. I've been a part of a 40,000 crowd at Boothferry Park for third division football. Not many cities in Britain can lay claim to attracting crowds like that, even in London, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester.
They should just focus their efforts on making travel to Leeds better and faster. There's no business in Hull, if they really want to serve the community they can help their people to go somewhere decent for concerts/shopping etc.
Unfortunately, there aren't anywhere near a million people within half an hour of Hull, the entire population of East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire combined is 750k. Grimsby's largest venue is about the same size as Hull City Hall and almost half the size of Hull Arena, so I can't see how they'd get any bigger acts. A better venue than the Hull Arena would be great for Hull, but it really doesn't need to be bigger than a 5,000 capacity, the KC gigs were an unmitigated disaster, they weren't nearly well enough supported to be viable and they were big acts.
Spot on. We don't even have a dedicated 2000/3000 capacity music venue to compete with the likes of the O2 academies across the country. We have multi-use venues which are only capable of putting on the odd concert and when they do they cost to the promoter much more than if they used a dedicated venue. As a result the number of touring acts that visit Hull is small, even Norwich gets far more and that's an absolute nightmare to get to which tells you something. Why not start there and if it becomes sustainable start to think bigger, instead of jumping straight to a 10,000+ arena which we really don't need.
I would say if the concerts at the KC were a 'unmitigated disaster', it was down to the appalling bad luck Adam Pearson had with the weather because from memory all but the first one ( Elton John, which was very well attended) it poured it down with rain. REM played throughout a thunder storm, and for Neil Diamond it was like a winters night. Also the marketing left a lot to be desired. Pearson made the mistake of selling the few remaining Elton John tickets on the day of the the concert at a vastly reduced price, so what happened for all the other concerts do you think? People held back from buying tickets until the last minute then were put off by the appalling weather. The Who played before 8,000 in Sheffield before the Hull concert and it was reported as a roaring success, yet the 12,-15,000 ( I forget the exact figures) they played in front of at the KC 'lost money' ? So I would take 'unmitigated disaster' with a pinch of salt. A couple of the concerts maybe didn't go down as well as expected, because of the weather and the poor marketing but I believe the others broke even and perhaps showed a profit. Unless you know otherwise? And do you think we have seen the last of them ?
