The Riviera Centre sits at the heart of the Torquay community, overlooking the beautiful South Devon coastline. This versatile venue offers an exciting take on just how flexible a conferencing space can be!
This venue has so much to offer, breaking it all down into just one venue showcase is a challenge! The venue offers seven meeting spaces, all with their own individual charm, with each able to provide totally unique solutions. We’re talking all the way from the 1500, delegates in their conference hall, all the way to smaller, personal boardroom style meeting spaces - they’ve got it all.
When we talk about the flexibility that the Riviera International Centre can offer, we mean it, not only is this a brilliant conferencing venue, but the seaside venue also is packed to the gills with amazing leisure facilities. From a swimming pool and a gym all the way to top notch spa and beauty treatments, even to fully equipped sports facilities and courts, there’s no shortage of options when it comes to alternate options for your delegates!
It’s difficult not to be stunned by this place, with it's manicured floristry and topiary in the gardens of the Riviera International Centre, welcoming you as you pass the bowls and tennis courts, and all set against the backdrop of the seaside - this is a fab venue in a very special spot.
We have to talk about the location of the Riviera International first. That’s what wowed us most on first impression. You’ll be hard pressed to find another venue in all of Britain, let alone Devon, that can provide such a gamut of brilliant events solutions, with such a scenic location. Step out of the doors here and you're thirty seconds walk from the sea, with stunning views of the surrounding area to match. The Torquay coastline is quiet and charming, if you want to step away from that city-style buzz, this is the place to go. By our accounts, there’s no better soundtrack to a great event than crashing waves!
You might think that such a fantastic seaside venue may be a bit out in the sticks - without great connections. You’d be dead wrong. The Riviera International is half a mile from the nearest railway station, and just over half an hour from the nearest airport! There’s also so many options to stay locally to the venue, the surrounding area has a host of brilliant hotels, some of which we’re even spotlighting this month's host of Devon venue showcases!
Surrounding the venue is a plethora of incredible landmarks and attractions which can enhance your next event. The standout for us was Torre Abbey, Torbay's most historic building, nearly 1000 years old, built in 1196, this is a stunning monument that is surrounded by 18 acres of parkland. The team here at the Riviera International Centre can facilitate your team to explore as part of your event. This is a real stunner of a space that’s absolutely not to be missed!
There’s plenty of parking spaces at the venue, if your delegates are making their own way down. If you’re planning on organising a coach service for your team, there’s three coach parking spaces that allow your vehicles to be ready for pick-up and drop-off, no matter the hour - so let them post expo after parties run all night!
Venue Address: Chestnut Avenue, Torquay, TQ2 5LZ
Website: rivieracentre.co.uk
Sales Contact: Viki Thompson, Events Manager
Phone Number: 01803206329
Email Address: ric.events@lexleisure.org.uk
As we mentioned before, one of this venue’s most stunning features is its versatility, and it has everything - let’s go to food and drink first. Event catering is available across this venue, in every single one of their function rooms. What we loved about the approach here was the plethora of options, you could choose from cold fork buffets with tons of tasty bites, or gala dinners for up to 1000 guests, serving real premium, high quality food. All of the catering is done in house by a lovely team of top chefs who will create bespoke menus to suit your needs!
The venue also has three places to grab a hot or cold drink; they've got their own internal cafe, The Aqua Lounge. It’s a lovely, welcoming open plan area for drinks and bites alike, there’s a really nice vibe here and it’s a great spot to get a bit of last minute work done (with a hot brew in hand) before a big event!
The Riviera International Centre also has two permanent event bars that can be hired out for your next meeting. The spaces mean that this is a brilliant place for drinks receptions - they’re embedded into some of the best meeting spaces on offer in this venue. The Centre also has capabilities to bring temporary bars into most of their function rooms to make sure no delegate is empty-handed at your event!
While the food and drink here stuns, the leisure facilities are absolutely not to be glossed over. There’s pretty much everything on offer, while the pool might not be the ideal spot for a conference, facilities like this go a long way to expand the capabilities of venues - the Riviera is no exception. The huge pool area here features wave pool facilities and has a host of water slides big and small, although we didn’t get to try them, you can bet that we were wishing we could! The sport facilities on site are also top notch, the gym is a serious, modern, fully blown gym with every piece of equipment you could dream of it also has two studio rooms which could be an interesting way to incorporate some inventive team-building!
When it comes to meeting spaces - this venue has everything, and to a really brilliant standard too, the Riviera International Centre has so many options that can cater for so many different types of events - we challenge you to find something that the team here couldn’t facilitate - we couldn’t! The team themselves are lovely, the venue has Dedicated Events Coordinators who will join you on every step of the process from the inception of your event all the way to packing away!
As previously mentioned, versatility and flexibility are huge cornerstones of the Riviera Centre’s philosophy, and so the options here are boundless, the Burdett room is ideal for smaller meetings, but the Grace Murrell Suite can cater for 1500 and become a fully blown conference hall. Everything is scalable here and so many of the spaces can be smartly altered to fit your needs thanks to the embracing of technology and new ideas in the eventing world, throughout this venue’s nearly 50 years of experience.
Meeting Space Highlight - Forum Hall
This space really shows off the incredible location of the Riviera International Centre. Gorgeous full height bay windows adorn this room with absolutely stunning views of the seaside. This is a two level room with the main auditorium on the ground floor and a balcony that provides additional seating - what really impressed us though was that this seating is removable and can be altered to accommodate almost any kind of event. These are the kind of top notch innovations we’re looking for in event spaces now-a-days, rooms that can be so versatile they can almost become anything you could imagine. This is a brilliant space with a direct back of house catering area - as well as discreet loading in entrance.
Natural daylight: Yes
Theatre style layout – capacity 1500
Cabaret style layout – capacity – 280
Dinner – capacity: 330 with dance floor 400 without (based on round tables)
AV equipment: Basic AV Package consisting of: House PA system with 2 x handheld microphones Large pull-down projection screen on stage Projector (located on the lighting bar) and connected via HDMI lead on stage House lighting and white wash on stage The sound and light are controlled by the equipment on the sound desk at the back of the room. The Projector however is connected via a HDMI located on the stage. Additional cost.
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Meeting Space Highlight - Arena Hall
Wow! This is a big room, the largest that the Riviera Centre offers with 1750 square metres of floor space, this room has everything - plus a supreme sense of functionality. The loading-in access door is big enough for a double decker bus to be driven through (yes, you read that right) meaning anything can happen in this truly incredible space that can also serve as a banqueting room. The versatility of this space is compounded by its use, multiple times, for special events like BBC’s Question Time! The room also shares a designated accessible friendly entrance hall with The Forum which we loved - the whole space is highly accessible and wheelchair friendly.
Location: Ground Floor
Natural daylight: Yes
How big is the room: 1750 Sq.m
Dinner – capacity: 450
Drinks reception – capacity: 2000
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Meeting Space Highlight - Grace Murrell Suite
The Grace Murrell Suite provides a brilliant mid-sized option for your event, this room can be partitioned into four smaller rooms, and what we loved about the system in place here, was the fact that the venue had gone the extra mile, and sound-proofed the partition walls - such a great small touch that any event-prof will know, goes a very long way. The room has its own dedicated entrance that directly links to the onsite parking and a small registration area! A brilliant room that can provide so many different solutions for your next event.
Location: Lower ground but does have its own entrance building is split level
Natural daylight: Yes
Theatre style layout – capacity: 160
Cabaret style layout – capacity: 70
Dinner – capacity: 80
Drinks reception – capacity: 450
AV equipment : Projector and screen in each room with HDMI connection. Included in DDR packages.
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Summary
And that’s that for our whistle-stop tour of the Riviera International Centre. What an amazing venue with so much to offer. We left this place in awe at the combination of top grade facilities with a breathtaking location with those gorgeous seaside vistas - that’s a combination you’ll be hard pressed to find anywhere else in this region!