Manchester Central, one of the UK’s largest event venues, has said it “remains extremely confident in its growth trajectory” as fresh quarterly figures show a strong business performance ahead of new CEO, Lori Hoinkes, joining next month.
Figures from its latest Economic Index covering the first three months of the year reveal the venue welcomed over 123,600 visitors to 41 events in the quarter.
Events held at the 10,000-capacity venue in the quarter included LEGO’s Bricktastic, the Northern Restaurant and Bar exhibition and elite global sports event HYROX. The quarter’s events brought the total number of conferences, exhibitions and events held at the venue in the financial year to 152.
At the end of March, the venue also hosted the World Snooker Tour, a ten-day event broadcast live on ITV which saw Mark Williams beat Ronnie O’Sullivan to win the title.
The report revealed that the inbound tourism created by the events held at the venue from January to March added over £21.6m to the Greater Manchester economy, through secondary sales in hospitality and hotel bookings.
CEO Shaun Hinds, who leaves in May to take up the role of chief executive at Newbury Racecourse, said: “I’m extremely pleased with how the venue has performed through this quarter. With an incoming change in leadership, it can be easy to assume a period of instability, however these figures not only demonstrate the strength of the venue and our ability to host large events, but also the expertise of the leadership team we have in place.”
More than 78 events are already scheduled to take place at the venue for the remainder of 2024, including July’s MegaCon Live which is expected to welcome over 15,000 attendees and the international music convention WOMEX in October where it’s estimated that the total value of business generated will be £28.3m.
