If you’re looking for a humongous, purpose built conference centre in Brighton, that ticks all the boxes, from its 4,500 capacity main hall to Sea view dining experience rooms to intimate meeting spaces, the Brighton Centre is a venue to tick off the bucket list, because it ticks all the boxes!
The Brighton Centre was the first purpose built conference centre in Britain, but you’d have a hard time believing this when inside. This is a modern, up to date space brimming with the latest technologies and capabilities that can meet requests from 400 in the main building or 80 in The Wing based on the flexibility of an exclusive hire.
With 23 syndicate rooms, 5000 square metres of primary exhibition space and so much more, this is a vast venue that we’re going to do our best to do justice too, but truthfully, this is the largest conference centre in the southeast - an unrivalled venue.
As well as all this, the venue is constantly striving to improve. This comes from its highly ambitious and experienced events team who have experience across some of the most high profile events in the industry. With this in mind, the team commissioned more refurbishments to this amazing space, which are set to be completed in October 2024. These refurbs are to The Wing space, which will see tiered seating in the first floor meeting rooms. We’re really excited to see these improvements, we honestly didn’t think it could get much better!
To get to the Brighton Centre from just about anywhere, is a quick walk! It’s in a great location, in Central Brighton, just 50 mins by train from Central London. We know more than any other kind of event, extra-large conventions and exhibitions like those you’d hold at Brighton Centre, need international access, well no problem the venue is just 30 mins by rail from Gatwick International Airport! The venue is also easily accessible via public transport, just a few minutes’ walk from Brighton Station and Pool Valley Coach Station.
The venue is also extremely sustainability focussed, so had a few fantastic touches on this front such as having their own custom cycle racks located at the front and rear of the venue. The venue also asked us at The Delegate Wranglers, to ask you to consider using public transport when making your way to Brighton Centre for your next event here. It’s the kind of touch you’d expect from this amazing team, that truly cares about sustainability beyond simple targets and goals.
As you enter the Brighton Centre, you’re greeted by the Foyer space. This is a really massive entrance area that feels flexible and airy. The openness to this space really meant that event planners can choose whatever kind of greeting they want for guests, to take the impact levels to the max from moment one.
The Foyer (1,300m2) has Meeting Room 1 at the back which offers 460m2 of additional exhibition space or for catering if required - a massive amount of open plan room for registration, exhibition, or just entering! This is a great first impression, we loved the feel of the room and the sense that everything was accessible from here - as it’s easy for huge venues like the Brighton Centre to become labyrinthine and overwhelming, but that feeling is nowhere to be seen!
As we entered the Brighton Centre venue, we noticed something we truly loved about this place, the accessibility. Wow - like we said before, this team really cares. Across the venue you can find brilliant touches like lift facilities for stage speakers with accessibility needs, a Changing Places facility as a standard for guests with additional needs, and a quiet room which is available for guests or organisers who may need to escape the high sensory demands of events. Just a continuation of the “attitude is everything” approach, that Brighton Centre continues to smash out of the park!
As you ascend the building, you’ll find Auditorium 1 and 2 on the first floor, flanked by the huge East and West bars, this is a huge floor, that feels the most immense to visit, we will touch on Auditorium 1 more in our Meeting Space highlights, but does the word “incredible” give you a hint?
The second floor is mostly eaten up by the double height Auditorium 1, but does feature some bonus meeting spaces, Meeting Rooms 3 and 5, along with Office 4 and a shower room, these rooms are perfect accompanying technical and operational suites for the main auditorium.
The Third floor focuses on Meeting Rooms 6-13 which offer an extensive range of sizes from 12 capacity board rooms to 80 capacity rooms - perfect for training before a large scale event, or a company briefing! The auditorium still takes up a majority of this floor (yep, it’s really that big, but the meeting rooms pack some serious punch. On the third floor too resides another one of the Meeting Space Highlights, the Skyline space, the clue this time? “Stunning”.
Venue Address: Kings Road, Brighton BN1 2GR
Venue Website: https://conferences.brightoncentre.co.uk
Sales Contact Name: Emma Thurlow
Sales Contact Phone Number: 01273 292671
Email Address: Emma.Thurlow@brighton-hove.gov.uk
You’d think this team wouldn’t have time to make sure you get top notch dining and team building options…. But somehow, they’ve managed it all - we’d say, with flying colours. The venue has a great relationship with VisitBrighton CVB for local team building opportunities. There are so many opportunities that really go out of the box, the team recalled Wine Tasting in the countryside, sustainable team beach cleans and Brighton Food Tours, as just some of the incredible options teams have done in the past at this venue! The Brighton and Hove City Council Outdoor events team are actually based in the Brighton Centre itself and are a go-to when it comes to Brighton Beach!
We mentioned the two bars on the first floor that flank the main auditorium earlier, they’re great. Brilliant spots that can be used however your imagination desires. Their size and scope mean that they can be scaled down to a small drink for delegates at break time, or up to full size when large dinners take over the auditorium. The other bars in the venue come either in the Skyline room on the third floor, or in the form of ingenious movable bars that the team can position nearly anywhere in the venue at a moment's notice! For non-alcoholic options, the ground floor cafe ‘feed’ comes with glorious takeaway food (we can testify this!) and some cracking coffee.
All of the catering on site is managed by the on-site caterer ‘Seasoned’ and they lived up to the name! It was clear the catering here was run by a team of genuine experts in their field.
When it comes to private dining, the centre’s your oyster. All dining packages can be booked online through Seasoned, and there’s so many places for you to choose from. While none of the rooms are set up specifically as dining areas, the flexibility of the venue allows you to pick and choose whatever space you’d prefer and set it up to your heart's content, we’d recommend the Skyline room for dining!
One key point that we took away from this venue is it’s important not to be fooled into thinking you have to be running a huge event to book The Brighton Centre. This venue can be taken advantage of in so many different ways, for example The Wing can be hired for smaller exclusive intimate space away from the main building for smaller events from 80.
We also loved the streamlining of the hiring process for the venue here. Sometimes venues can make it impossible to figure out what will come, and for what price… Here is a different story. The exclusive hire rate means in the main building you get all this space as standard within one simple hire rate!
MEETING SPACE HIGHLIGHT: Skyline
Walking into the Skyline room, the view takes your breath away with a wow! Floor to ceiling windows with a small glass walled terrace for outdoor space, allowing delegates to enjoy sea views and the sea air. Views of both piers, the famous sea-front and the Brightoni360 really complete this huge open, premium feeling sky lounge. A space that works particularly well for drinks receptions or as a VIP lounge. We could also see top end networking events, or gala dinners to be set here for top notch views while you chat!
Location: Third floor
Natural daylight - Yes
How big is the room in Sq.m - 320m2
Theatre style layout - capacity 300
Cabaret style layout - capacity 128
Dinner - capacity 192
Drinks reception - capacity 400
What AV equipment is included - AV is not included in this space
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MEETING SPACE HIGHLIGHT: The Wing
The Wing is its own entire meeting building, that can be hired self-contained from the rest of the Brighton Centre. Thanks to the incredible renovations, you can now choose to hire their self-contained The Wing space for up to 400 delegates - which has its own entrance, own foyer for registration and exclusive use of 6 spaces including space perfect for a green room/organisers room. Exclusive use of The Wing provides incredible opportunities for branding in the space - so the area can really feel like home!
Location: Ground + 1st Floor
Natural daylight - No
How big is the room in Sq.m - 400m2 x 2 (over 2 floors)
Theatre style layout - capacity 200 x as 4 spaces or 400 x 2 over 2 floors
Cabaret style layout - capacity 160 on each floor (x 2)
Dinner - capacity 240 on each floor (x2)
Drinks reception - capacity 400 in each space (x2)
What AV equipment is included - Fixed digital screens for laptop plug-in in each space (x4) PA systems with mics in each space (x4)
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MEETING SPACE HIGHLIGHT: Auditorium 1
Just take a look at images of this place, it’s huge. The Auditorium is the core of this building that makes it feel so alive and unique, it’s perfect for large conferences, large gala dinners, awards ceremonies, music concerts, comedy nights, theatre shows and exhibitions. The list isn’t exhaustive, because you could do anything with this space, use it in any way, incorporate the bars or don't utilise the stage or don’t invite 400 or 4000, this Auditorium venue is one that you, but more importantly the guests of your event, will never forget!
Location: Second Floor
Natural daylight - No
How big is the room in Sq.m - 1941m2
Theatre style layout - capacity 4500
Cabaret style layout - capacity 800
Dinner - capacity 1000
Drinks reception - capacity 2500
What AV equipment is included - House PA system which includes: - 10 Flare Audio x5s - Mixing Desk - Microphones - Tie lines - Central Tannoy system Full production AV not included.
Summary
It’s fair to say that we were blown away by the scope of this incredible venue, we could’ve talked about what it has to offer all day long. This is one you have to see to believe, and despite its near infinite charm inside, it’s easy to forget the incredible location of this venue - in the heart of our Destination of the Month, Brighton!