Wales Millennium Centre (WMC) has announced the launch of a cutting-edge digital-first performance venue.
As WMC celebrates its 20th anniversary, it says the new venue will revolutionise the digital and immersive arts landscape in Wales and beyond, providing a platform for storytelling through emerging technology.
The new site – opposite the existing centre – will include a 550-capacity space dedicated to exploring the power of immersive experiences, as well as facilities for production, rehearsal and training, and will be the first stand-alone building that WMC has added since being opened by The Queen in 2014.
WMC currently generates more than £70 million per year for the Welsh economy, attracting 1.8 million visitors to its iconic public building. Designed to meet the ever-changing needs of artists and creators using new tools and technologies, WMC’s new venue will complement existing performance spaces including the 1,900-seat Donald Gordon Theatre, the 250-seat Weston Studio, and 150-seat Cabaret venue, and it says it will dramatically enhance the centre’s role in the creative industries both for Wales and for the UK.
The new venue is expected to engage more than 10,000 participants in creative training over the next five years, enabling WMC’s existing youth programmes to grow, and providing greater opportunities for young people and artists to create, present new work, and learn vital new skills.
Offering more space for training and production, WMC says the world-class facility will empower future generations of creatives to explore digital and immersive arts and realise their creative voices, as well as being a state-of-the-art presenting and producing hub.
In collaboration with Cardiff Council, a site has been identified opposite WMC for the initiative. The project will be a key feature of the broader ‘Cardiff Live’ development, which will also include new office spaces for Cardiff Council, exhibition halls, and shared community areas. WMC says this strategic placement ensures that the new venue will become a central hub for digital arts in Wales, and a leading centre in the UK. Cardiff Council has appointed Goldbeck Construction with the build contract for the redevelopment.
The initiative, which has been in development for five years, builds on the success of Bocs, WMC’s pioneering immersive experiences and extended reality (XR) venue. Opened in 2022, Bocs has attracted new audiences to WMC, over 31,000 visitors across 18 immersive experiences. They have been able to experience some the world’s best immersive work – including multi-award-winning In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, which recreates the 1990s rave scene in virtual reality, and Cannes prize-winner ‘Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin’. WMC’s most recent digital programming, Invisible Ocean, spanned the entire site and has been the most popular digital immersive production that WMC has yet shown, with around 7,500 attendees in just six weeks.
WMC is also the official Welsh partner of prestigious three-year cross-UK ‘Immersive Arts’ consortium, which is enabling WMC to further its research into immersive technologies, including motion capture and games engines used to make virtual and augmented reality apps. The investment allows WMC to further support skills development in extended reality and break down barriers for artists of all backgrounds to engage with immersive tools. Immersive Arts will be awarding £3.6 million in grant funding to artists based in the UK between 2024 and 2027.
As part of the commissioning process for the venue, WMC will be launching a new award for an artist to develop their vision over a year. Further details of this initiative will be released in the new year.
Graeme Farrow, Chief Creative and Content Officer at Wales Millennium Centre, said:
“Storytelling is always developing. This new space will continue our work at the intersection of technology and the arts, allowing artists to explore and experiment with multimedia approaches to telling stories. Its flexibility will ensure that as new tools and technologies emerge, artists will always have access to the cutting-edge resources they need to push boundaries. We’re excited to offer even more creative opportunities to young people and artists, and to create a venue that evolves with the ever-changing digital landscape.”
Cllr Russell Goodway, Cabinet Member for Investment and Development at Cardiff Council said:
“This project is a big part of our ambition for Cardiff Live and Atlantic Wharf – driving the next phase of Cardiff Bay as a cultural destination. It will epitomise our approach of supporting production as well as performance, providing facilities to develop our own cultural offer as well as our local communities.”
Since being opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004, the UK’s largest arts centre outside London has hosted 23 million visits, generated £218 million in ticket sales, and seen 7800 performances. A total of 4,000 young people enjoy free creative opportunities annually, and WMC has hosted over 60 technical apprentices. World-class performances include Nye, WMC’s co-production with the National Theatre starring Michael Sheen, Hamilton, and Llais, the annual music and arts festival of voice.
