St. David’s Hall: the best event planning for the best acoustics

Celebrating 40 years of Welsh excellence

2023 marks St. David's Hall 40th birthday. Over these years, the concert hall has become renowned for its incredible acoustics. The concert hall was included in the world's Top Ten concert halls for acoustics in the Journal of Acoustical Society of America. This positions the venue ideally for recording and broadcasting live classical concerts, as the BBC regularly does.

The main concert hall can accommodate just under 2000 attendees at full capacity. Guiding us through the venue's story is Assistant Programme Manager Joanne John, who has been working at the venue for over 16 years now.

Installing Encore Pro Venue: A family affair

Before Encore Pro Venue was introduced, St. David's Hall used an outdated system with a limited number of licences. “Only so many people could be logged in at the same time. Whenever you wanted to edit information about an event, you had to write it down, call a colleague on the other side of the building, ask them to log off and only then log in yourself to make the edits,” Joanne says.

However, Encore Pro Venue allows an unlimited amount of licences, so the choice to switch was quickly made.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Joanne set up Encore Pro Venue together with her husband, who also works for St. David’s Hall. “It became a sort of family project actually. Amid lockdown, we both worked from home, trying to set up the ideal event planning system catering to the venue’s needs,” Joanne recalls.

Events on pause, Encore Pro Venue in motion

She and her husband carefully implemented Encore Pro Venue step-by-step. After which they introduced it to the rest of the team incrementally. First came the Programming Team, after that the department heads and then it was rolled out to the rest of the colleagues.

“The Programming Team quickly started using Encore Pro Venue to manage cancellations during the lockdowns. The colour-coded calendar view was immensely helpful in distinguishing rescheduled and cancelled events,” Joanne tells us.

Clearer visibility with colour-coded statuses

The colour-coded system plays a pivotal role in indicating an event’s booking stage. In Encore Pro Venue you can assign a status to an event to show in which phase of the booking cycle the event sits. “Essentially, we use it as a queue. Because the British love to queue (laughs). It goes from a first reserve to a second all the way to being confirmed. The simplicity and clarity of this overview is what makes Encore Pro Venue amazing for me,” Joanne explains.

Another thing Joanne appreciates is the platform’s use of industry-standard terminology. Unlike her previous system, Encore Pro Venue speaks the language of the arts — and that, she says, tells you everything about who built it.

Inside pictures by Gareth Griffiths and outside picture by Kieron Ridley.