Who to ask, about what
Contact the St Andrews Hall Norwich Reference Guide
Two different sets of questions go to two different places. This page explains which is which.
There are two quite different kinds of question about this building, and sending them to the right place saves everyone time. One concerns the premises and belongs with the people who run them; the other concerns the record set out on this site, and that is the part worth writing here about.
Bookings, tickets and anything about the premises
These go to Norwich City Council. The council owns the complex, operates it as The Halls, programmes the public events and handles every practical matter: availability, quotations, licensing, catering, technical arrangements, access requirements, press and filming. Everything that touches the premises themselves sits with that team, not with this guide.
Its published pages for the venue carry current contact details, including a telephone number and an email address for the venue team, and they are kept up to date. That is the reason to use them rather than a number copied from somewhere else — contact details for venues change, and a guide that reprints them ages badly.
Anyone whose question is “can I use this building, on this date, for this” has a booking enquiry, and it belongs with the council rather than here. That includes filming, private views, access outside normal hours and anything else that depends on the building being opened, none of which a reference guide has any standing to arrange.
Questions about this guide
This site is a reference guide to the building: its history, its performance record, the rooms and their capacities, and the practical business of getting there. It does not take bookings, sell tickets or control access. It is written to be useful to visitors, hirers and anyone reconstructing the building’s past.
Where it can be useful is on the record itself. The performance history in particular is assembled from band archives, orchestral listings, fan-maintained databases and local sources, and it is incomplete by construction — no complete register of who played this hall was ever kept. Gaps in it are the rule and not the exception, and they are worth filling.
Corrections and additions
Corrections are welcome, and supported ones are welcome most of all. A date, a venue reference, a programme, a ticket stub, a photograph or a contemporary review can each settle a question that would otherwise stay open, and material of that kind is frequently the only surviving evidence for a particular night.
The same applies to the rest of the guide. Capacities change with licensing, access arrangements change with building work, and market schedules change with organisers. Anything here that has gone out of date is worth flagging. A page that was accurate when written can quietly stop being so, and outside eyes catch that first.
Corrections and material for the record go to the publisher of this guide, by post or by telephone:
Declan Fowler49 Simone Weil Avenue
Weare Giffard
EX39 2SJ
United Kingdom
Telephone: 077 1451 1446
Photographs, programmes and ticket stubs are best sent as copies, never originals, since nothing sent here can be insured or returned with any certainty. A date, a room and wherever the item came from are worth writing on the copy: an undated photograph of a crowded hall could be almost any night of the last fifty years, while the same photograph with a date on the back settles a line in the record.
What this guide will not do
It will not tell you that a room is available, because it does not know. It will not confirm a wedding licence for a specific date, because that is the council’s to confirm. It will not arrange filming, grant access out of hours, sell a ticket or confirm a price, since rates are the council’s to set and publish.
Those limits are worth stating plainly, because a guide that implies otherwise wastes the time of people who are usually trying to organise something on a deadline and cannot afford a wasted week. For all of it, the council’s venue pages are the destination, and they are linked from the foot of every page here.
Common questions
How do I book a room or check availability?
Through Norwich City Council, which owns the complex and operates it as The Halls. The council handles availability, quotations, licensing, catering and the technical arrangements, and publishes its own current terms. Booking enquiries sent anywhere else will only be redirected there. Enquiries sent elsewhere are simply forwarded there, which only adds delay.
How do I buy tickets for an event?
Ticketing is handled by the council or by the promoter of the individual event, depending on what it is. The council's published listing for the venue gives the route for each date, which is why it is the source worth going to first and the way to avoid a reseller by mistake.
Can you tell me if a particular band played there?
The performance history collects what can be verified from band archives, orchestral listings and concert databases, and it is genuinely incomplete because no full register was ever kept. Corrections and additions supported by a source are welcome and are the main way the record improves. A named source matters more than a confident memory, because memories of dates drift.
I have a photograph or a programme from an old event. Is it of interest?
Very much so. Material of that kind — ticket stubs, programmes, posters, photographs — is often the only surviving evidence for a given night, and it is exactly what fills the gaps in a performance record assembled from scattered sources. Even a blurred photograph with a legible date settles questions that nothing else can.
Do you handle press or filming enquiries?
No. Press, filming and location enquiries concern the building itself and go to the council's venue team, which can grant access and set conditions. This guide has no authority over the premises and cannot arrange or permit anything on site. A guide cannot grant permission for premises it does not own or control.
Is there a phone number for the venue?
The council publishes current contact details for The Halls on its own pages, including a telephone number and an email address for the venue team. Those details are kept up to date there, which is the reason to use them instead of a number copied elsewhere. Contact details for venues change, and a guide that reprints them ages badly.