musical.today Llandudno, United Kingdom
Venue Cymru
Theatre, arena and conference centre on the Llandudno seafront, and the third or fourth name for entertainment on this site: the Victoria Palace of 1894 became the Llandudno Opera House, then the Hippodrome, then the Arcadia, before the Aberconwy Centre replaced it all in 1982.
The building
The Victoria Palace opened in July 1894 as a temporary 1,150-seat concert hall for Jules Rivière, then seventy-five, and his orchestra of forty-two, after he fell out with the pier company. Charles and Wilma Hallé gave a recital with them that year.
Will Catlin bought it in 1916 and ran it as the Arcadia, home of Catlin's Pierrots and a young Ken Dodd. The building that replaced it in 1982 does what the seaside seasons used to: a theatre big enough for a touring musical and an arena for everything else.
Opening dates, capacities and architects on this page come from the theatre's own history pages and from Wikipedia.