Castlebar - County Mayo - Royal Theatre Short-Listed for Venue Awards

As part of the second annual IMRO Live Music Venue of the Year Awards, The Royal Theatre in Castlebar has been nominated for the Hot Press Readers Award for Best Venue.

The Royal Theatre, Castlebar is short listed in the IMRO Live Music Venue of the Year Awards.

The venues are judged on a number of criteria including the staging, sound, ambience, lighting, diversity in programming, venue staff, management and promotional activities of the venue.

The IMRO awards are in recognition of Irish music venues that provide the very highest standards in live music entertainment. Qualifying venues included pubs, hotels, arts centres, theatres, purpose built music venues and many more. The awards acknowledge the central role that live music venues play in developing and supporting the music community in Ireland. Live music venues provide superb, quality entertainment to the public and a platform for Irish artists across all genres of music.

Almost 7,000 members of IMRO have been busy nominating their favourite Irish venues.

Pat Jennings Director of the The Royal Theatre said “We are delighted that The Royal Theatre has been short-listed for an IMRO Live Music Venue of The Year Award…we have put a lot of work into our venue over the last 18 months and we are constantly looking at new ways to create awareness of our product while also ensuring we are brining in some of the best acts out there, including Snow Patrol this December and Bryan Adams next year”

The winning venues will be announced at a special prize ceremony, which will take place on Tuesday 1st December. There will also be a special Hot Press Readers Award presented at the event for Best Live Music Venue, as voted by the general public, and by readers of Hot Press Magazine.

In 2008, a hugely ambitious development was undertaken in the heart of Castlebar town. The existing Royal Theatre was completely demolished and, within the period of only 19 weeks, in its place emerged the brand new, state-of-the-art Royal Castlebar Theatre and Event Centre. International pop superstar, Shayne Ward had the privilege of being the first major act to perform in the venue when his sell-out concert took place on August 30th, 2008. History was made when Riverdance, the international phenomenon of the entertainment business, was performed for the first time ever in Connaught. In early September, 2008, Riverdance ran for ten performances and huge crowds flocked to be part of this wonderful occasion. The recent opening of the fantastic facility that is the new Royal Castlebar Theatre and Event Centre, which has a seating capacity of over 2,000, is a huge vote of confidence in Castlebar and a massive step forward for Connaught. When coming to The Royal Theatre to see a show, patrons have the choice of two onsite Hotels to stay at; The 4 Star Days Hotel and the 3 Star TF Royal Hotel.

The Royal Theatre has hosted a number of big acts since including: Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, The Feeling, The Fray, The Proclaimers, Beautiful South, Smokie, Keith Barry, The Script, The Coronas, Martina Mc Bride, Jack L, The Stunning, The Frames, Ray La Montagne, Dr Hook ,Duke Special, Christy Moore, Status Quo, The Saw Doctors, BellX1, Director, Imelda May, Des Bishop, Ardal O’Hanlon, Tommy Tiernan, Shane Mc Gowan and Sharon Shannon to name but a few.

Most patrons come from the west of Ireland but with a wide variety of acts and central location, more and more people are coming from Northern Ireland , Midlands, South West and even as far as England with Knock Airport on our Door step.

The acts are just getting bigger and bigger with Snow Patrol and Bryan Adams coming up in the next few months as well as an entertainment packed Christmas ahead everyone in the west waits with baited breath to see who will The Royal Theatre bring to us next.

For updates on shows join us now on Facebook and Twitter, and be the first to see new acts announced. Check us out on www.theroyal.ie for links to our pages and to book tickets.