Royal Albert Hall - Events

Events

The Hall has played host to over 150,000 different events and has been affectionately titled "The Nation's Village Hall". The first concert was Arthur Sullivan's cantata, On Shore and Sea performed on 1 May 1871.

Many events are promoted by the Hall themselves, whilst since the early 1970s, Raymond Gubbay has brought a range of events to the Hall including opera, ballet and classical music. Some events include classical and rock concerts, conferences, ballroom dancing, poetry recitals, education, motor shows, marathons, ballet, opera and circus shows. It has hosted many sporting events, including boxing, squash, table tennis, basketball, wrestling (including the first Sumo wrestling tournament to be held in London as well as UFC 38 (the first UFC event to be held in the UK) and tennis.

The climax of the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much was filmed in the Royal Albert Hall.

The International Poetry Incarnation was held at the Hall on 11 June 1965. It attracted an audience of 7,000 people to readings and live and tape performances by a wide variety of figures, including Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.

The psychedelic rock band Cream played two farewell concerts at the Hall on 26 November 1968 before they broke up. 37 years later, they reunited for a series of four shows at the Hall in May 2005, the success of which inspired a further series of concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York City in October 2005.

The original lineup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience gave their last European performances at the Hall on 18 and 24 February 1969. Hendrix died one year later. Footage was shot of the performances, but the Hendrix estate has yet to release it.

After Sandie Shaw won the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, the BBC hosted the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest at the Hall.

Led Zeppelin also performed a gig here during their 1970's United Kingdom Tour on January 9, 1970.

Lata Mangeshkar, India's greatest playback singer performed her first ever international concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1974; this was the first time an Indian performed at the hall. Following its resounding success, she returned to the same venue in 1979, this time performing with the Wren Orchestra.

Miss World Pageant finals were held at the Hall from 1969 to 1988.

On 24 September 1969 Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed the classic rock Concerto for Group and Orchestra.

On 2 April 1975 Tangerine Dream performed a 2-hour gig during their 1975 European Tour featuring Michael Hoenig from Agitation Free. The concert was broadcast by BBC Radio 1 and was officially released as part of The Bootleg Box Set Vol. 1.

Gary Moore performed on 4 and 5 October 1992 during the "After Hours" tour. The song Parisienne Walkways was included in his 1993 live album Blues Alive.

Yanni conducted his concert Yanni Live at Royal Albert Hall corresponding to his tour of the year Yanni Live, The Symphony Concerts 1995.

Les Miserables celebrated its 10th anniversary on October 8, 1995 with a concert performed by the 'Dream Cast' led by the original London & Broadway cast Jean Valjean, Colm Wilkinson, & Philip Quast as Javert Les Misérables: The Dream Cast in Concert

The Corrs performed on 17 March 1998 as a St Patrick's Day Special. This was their first live concert in the UK, which was broadcast on the BBC and released on VHF titled The Corrs: Live at the Royal Albert Hall.

The Concert For George was held at Royal Albert Hall on November 29, 2002, the first anniversary of George Harrison's passing.

Siti Nurhaliza from Malaysia, perform a solo concert in April 2005, most of the of the audience are Malaysian that live in the United Kingdom or come from far away just to see the concert. The British Press called Siti "The Asia's Celine Dion" because of the strength of excellent vocal and performance. Malaysia Book of Records records that Siti was the first Malaysia artist who perform at the Royal Albert Hall.

The American rock band The Killers performed two shows on 5 and 6 July 2009, that were recorded for the DVD Live From The Royal Albert Hall. The DVD was packaged with a CD and was released on 6 November of the same year and earned a rating of five stars and the "best rock dvd of the decade" by Starpulse.

Northern Irish/Scottish alternative rock band Snow Patrol performed at the Albert during their 2009 Up To Now tour.

Swedish prog-death metal band Opeth also filmed its 20th anniversary DVD In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, covering two sets: its breakthrough album, Blackwater Park, in its entirety, and a chronologically-arranged set of one song from each of its other eight albums.

On 22 September 2011 Adele filmed her DVD Live At The Royal Albert Hall.

On 2 October 2011, the Hall staged the 25th anniversary performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, which was broadcast live to cinemas across the world and filmed for DVD. Lloyd Webber, the original London cast including Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford, and four previous actors of the titular character, among others, were in attendance - Brightman and the previous Phantoms (aside from Crawford) performed an encore.

On 24 September 2012, Classic FM celebrated the 20th anniversary of their launch with a concert at the hall. The programme featured live performances of works by Handel, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Parry, Vaughn Williams, Tchaikovsky and Karl Jenkins who conducted his piece The Benedictus from The Armed Man in person.

On 23 October 2012, the royal premiere of the James Bond film Skyfall took place at the hall.