Royal Armouries

The beauty of this venue, inside and out, is apparent as you walk up to this large, distinctive building, with a beautiful blend of brutalist architecture and glass panelling, that assures you this is going to be a venue to remember.

To give you a sense of the physicality of the area there’s a beautiful large square that divides out the Royal Armouries building and the New Dock Hall, just off this square is a multi storey car park that will support as many spaces as your delegates require. This whole area is on the beautiful bank of the River Aire, that runs adjacent to the buildings, providing a beautiful, unique bit of urban scenery. This is a modern, super safe and tidy area that is surrounded by some lovely bars and restaurants on the riverbanks after your event is done with!

Once inside the Royal Armouries building, we were greeted by a stunning multi-storey-high concourse, with natural light flooding in from the ceiling. We stopped off at The Master Cafe on this visit and had a lovely coffee, before heading to the Royal Armouries Hall, which is the only event space accessible from the ground floor - the rest being on the second floor of this magnificent building. Our first impression on entry into the Royal Armouries building was how good this concourse space would be as an event registration area, there’s plenty of room to have a great pop up that’ll set the tone for your talk, meeting or dinner.

On the other hand, if you choose to check out the New Dock Hall, you’ll be greeted by their totally refurbished foyer. This is a really stunning space and was our first inkling that the team here at Royal Armouries had spent the money really well in the effort to refurbish some of their older spaces, bringing them up not just to the present, but actually elevating them with a really quirky, innovative approach. This space was another great spot for registration, or alternatively for a drinks reception/networking space, with plenty of room and natural light.

The aforementioned foyer space was emblematic of the changes made across New Dock Yard, with the integration of some beautiful wood-working's, with minimalistic, yet homely interior design choices that inform the spaces well, the Meeting Spaces or Education learning facilities have clearly been renovated with these things in mind, there’s no doubt that the team at Royal Armouries have put a lot of work into crafting these areas to be the best they can be.

Royal Armouries is a super versatile venue, that really packed a punch across all sectors of what it means to put on a great event. We were surprised by the amazing catering facilities across both venues, with the Royal Armouries Taste team proving that they’ve got… well, taste! The team had plenty of variable and exciting menus for different types of events, convention packages, meeting packages, and much more.

We also loved the number of fantastic pledges by the Taste Team including: All dishes created fresh on the day, with the finest, local ingredients, a team of fully trained allergen champions, no single use plastics at all events - including with meals/catering, and Refillable Glass Bottles available across the premises to reduce waste. We’re always a fan of innovation at The Delegate Wranglers, and these felt like some really creative ways to incorporate sustainability into a venue that clearly not just looks at history, but also towards the future!

Another part of their sustainability push, The Armouries team have 20 cycle parking bays available for use free of charge as well as a cycle repair kit on Armouries Drive for any cyclist that may need a patch up! Other kinds of sustainable travel like coach/bus journeys have easy access to the main square, from which both the Royal Armouries Museum and the New Dock Stars are within a few steps!

While this venue doesn’t have its own hotel services - Royal Armouries benefits from 4,000 hotel rooms, ranging from budget to executive luxury accommodation in the nearby vaccinity. All of these are just a short stroll from the venue and easily accessible by public transport. Thanks to the Royal Armouries central location, any hotels around the area are by proxy, in one of the coolest areas of Leeds, and linked easily to the top attractions of the city, for guests at your event who may be first time visitors to this beautiful Northern location.

It goes without saying, after all of the Royal Armouries other innovations, but high-speed internet access is available across all 4 floors of the building and enables fast wired and wireless connectivity for all devices. Multiple ports concealed in the floor mean that a secure wired internet connection is never far away, ideal for our flexible exhibitor spaces who need a reliable connection for larger scale presentations or exhibitions.

Finally, we want to point to a couple of the renovated spaces that we haven’t yet been able to discuss, that didn’t quite make it into our Meeting Space Highlights.

Firstly, is the space with maybe one of the coolest names of any of the meeting/event spaces we’ve ever seen, The WAR CINEMA is a brand new, fantastic cinema that can be used for both screenings, or talks, and seats up to one hundred guests on the building’s second floor.

Next is the all new Barton Suite - it’s a continuation of the modern upgrades in the New Dock Yard, with the same fantastic dark wood detailing, and some beautiful upscale furnishings that give this place the feel of a bright, comfortable, modern lounge. It also comes with an 80in Plasma Screen, with HDMI connectivity, that sets it apart from many simpler, less versatile spaces.

Last but not least in this little bonus round are a couple of the smaller rooms that have been refurbished/setup as part of the new look New Dock Hall. The Hotot Suite is an even more versatile space, designed to accommodate more intimate conferences and seminars and provides an ideal setting for gatherings of 12 (boardroom), to 30 (Theatre) or 30 people (Reception). The room was named after a woman named Agnes Hotot who took her ill fathers place in a jousting competition (at the time - seen as strictly male only) and won! In fact - all of the new suites here have been renamed after influential, but potentially forgotten, women in history who made their mark on the art of war!

The final room we will touch on is the Aire Pearl Suite, which is notable for its second storey, panoramic views of Leeds city. The room features ample natural light too and can be set up beautifully with screens, projectors or whiteboards for seminar style events of 80-200 attendees.

We’ve discovered some of the fantastic smaller spaces on offer at this incredible Leeds venue, now it’s time to dive straight first into the impressive spaces, offering grandeur in plenty, for expo/gala/awards style events that will leave an everlasting impression on its delegates.

Meeting Space Highlight: New Dock Hall
The New Dock Hall is an unbelievable space that is so much than just a blank canvas – with its lovely foyer area providing as a perfect reception space, this is a huge, and we mean huge event space that is somehow, as if by magic, totally unrestricted by pesky pillars, giving limitless scope for the setup of your next event. Ever the innovators, the New Dock Hall team have programmable floor to ceiling cloth within this hall, meaning you can incorporate different sections to the space, or scale it up and down to whatever your requirements may be. Speaking of requirements, if you require a bite to eat (which we eventprofs often do) the New Dock Hall has a dedicated kitchen and staff, as well as bar facilities adjacent.

Best use for room- Gala dinners, awards, exhibitions, large conferences – very versatile! Décor/Design features - Lovely foyer area with plentiful natural light.

Natural light: No
Size: 1259 Metres squared
Reception: 1500
Theatre: 1200
Banquet:1000
Cabaret: 750
Location- ground floor of the New Dock Yard

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Meeting Space Highlight: Royal Armouries Hall
Easily accessible on the ground floor of the Royal Armouries Museum, this hall space is divisible, flexible and adaptable with a range of seating arrangements and layouts. Our favourite feature was the soundproof walls that make you feel in a world of your own at the event, away from the hustle bustle of the museum. The Hall can also link directly to Bury Lecture Theatre on one side and the Vera Suite on the other which can be used for registration or as a dedicated bar for refreshments.

Best use for room - Most suited to conferences, dinners, awards

Décor/Design features- Really nice feel to the room, some pillars yet a flexible space.
Natural light: No
Size: 886 Metres squared
Reception: 100
Theatre: 500
Banquet: 700
Cabaret: 250

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Meeting Space Highlight: Bury Theatre
Located again in the Royal Armouries building on the ground floor, this purpose built, self contained, theatre style room is air-conditioned across the 2 tiers of cinema style seating. This is a super comfy space, roomy and practical, there’s no chance your watchers will get bored of any lecture here!

On top of this, there’s also adjacent rooms for registration, refreshments and exhibitions space if you want to make an interesting combination of spaces, around one of Yorkshire’s most prestigious lecture theatres, for your next event!

Natural light: No
Size: 208 (stalls) 80 (balcony) metres squared
Reception: n/a
Theatre: 250
Banquet: n/a
Cabaret: n/a

Summary
We think it’s fair to say that the Royal Armouries absolutely had the wow-factor. We were particularly impressed with its versatility, with everything from small, yet beautifully vibrant meeting rooms, to outdoor spaces with the capacity to host 2500 people. Mostly however, across all of these styles of spaces, the team here never compromise on offering a world class service for your next event. Go see it asap #highlyrecommended