Brighton Dome

You can run a plenary of up to 1,700 seated delegates and hold your exhibition, catering and breakouts in the same complex, a 10-minute walk from Brighton station. The Concert Hall gives you tiered seating for keynotes, and the Corn Exchange next door switches between raked seating, a dinner hall and 780 m² of flat-floor exhibition space. Both sit on the Royal Pavilion Estate in Brighton’s North Laine, and the venue is run by Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival, a registered charity that puts venue hire income back into its arts programme.

Event spaces and capacities

The venue markets six hireable spaces, with the Gallery Bar and Festival Bar listed together. The largest is the Grade II listed Concert Hall, which the venue says seats 1,400 to 1,700 depending on configuration (1,700 with the upper circle, 1,000 at ground level, 550 in the centre stalls) and takes 1,700 to 1,800 in a mixed standing and seated layout. The Corn Exchange has retractable seating for about 500 and, according to the venue, the widest span timber frame in the country; its published exhibition area is 780 m². The Studio Theatre also has retractable seating, so you can use it flat for dinners or as a breakout room. Note that its theatre figure differs between pages: 230 on the hire pages and 267 on the Studio Theatre page.

Capacities as published by the venue on its conferences page and the individual space pages, checked 5 November 2026. The Studio Theatre also seats 40 boardroom style, and the Founders Room, which divides into two, seats 30 boardroom or U-shape. The Corn Exchange area is its published exhibition space. The venue has not published a dinner figure for the Gallery Bar.

For registration, the Foyer Bar sits beside the Concert Hall, the Corn Exchange and the breakout rooms, and the venue says it opens directly into Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, which is often used with it for evening events. The venue quotes two repeat users: TEDxBrighton, which brings an audience of 1,300 back each year, and GÉANT, which holds its annual conference here.

Getting there and parking

Delegates arriving by train walk about 10 minutes from Brighton station, which the venue says is 52 minutes from London Victoria and 56 minutes from London Bridge. There are bus stops on North Street, Queen’s Road and Pavilion Parade, and a taxi pick-up point on Church Street. The spaces use two addresses, so put both in your joining instructions: the Concert Hall, Founders Room and Foyer are on Church Street (BN1 1UE, entrances 3 and 4) and the Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre are on New Road (BN1 1UG, entrance 1).

Plan for drivers to use public car parks, because the venue has none of its own and on-street parking nearby is very limited. The nearest is the NCP Theatre Car Park on Church Street (£11 after 5pm). The RCP car park on North Road charges £6 from 5pm to midnight, and The Lanes Car Park on Black Lion Street charges £7.50 on weekdays and £8.50 at weekends from 6pm. For electric cars, the venue points to 9 Type 2 22kW chargers at Churchill Square car park and 8 at NCP Russell Road; the Theatre Car Park no longer has chargers. Blue Badge holders can use bays on Church Street with no time limit and on New Road for up to 3 hours. Bikes can be locked at the bottom of Church Street or New Road.

Catering, AV and accommodation

You get technical support from the venue’s in-house team, and the Founders Room comes fitted with a 60-inch screen, a full PA system and Wi-Fi. The venue says the 5G testbed it launched in 2019 was set up in the Founders Room and Foyer. Catering is provided through the venue’s catering partners, who are not named on its website, so ask who they are and what menus they offer. There are no bedrooms on site; the venue points to hotels within easy reach of the city centre.

For access, the venue lists lifts, accessible toilets and wheelchair-accessible foyers, bars and auditoriums. The Concert Hall has Sennheiser infrared hearing assistance, while the Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre use induction loops and the Mobile Connect Wi-Fi system. Access statements are published for the Concert Hall and the Corn Exchange. On sustainability, the venue says it buys 100% renewable REGO-backed electricity, follows the Theatre Green Book baseline and aims for net zero in its own operations by 2030.

What to ask before you book

• Which Studio Theatre theatre-style figure applies to your layout: the 230 on the hire pages or the 267 on the space page?
• Can the Corn Exchange host your exhibition at the same time as a Concert Hall plenary, and how will delegates move between the New Road and Church Street entrances?
• Who are the named catering partners, and can the Gallery Bar take a seated dinner, since no figure is published?
• What rigging, staging and load-in limits apply in the Grade II listed Concert Hall and under the Corn Exchange’s historic timber roof?
• Which public shows or Brighton Festival dates in May fall around your event, and do they limit access to the foyers or bars?
• Can the venue reserve Blue Badge bays or help with drop-off on Church Street for delegates who need it?

Related on Events Review

• Conference venues in Brighton
• Historic event venues
• Brighton Centre
• Royal Pavilion
• The Grand Brighton
• The Old Ship Hotel
• Hotel du Vin Brighton
• The Bridgewater Hall
• Aberdeen Performing Arts
• Turn venue accessibility claims into a usable event plan
• Choose the venue around the event, not the headline capacity

Sources: Brighton Dome: conferences and meetings, dinners and social events, exhibitions and fairs, Concert Hall, Corn Exchange, Studio Theatre, Founders Room, Foyer Bar, getting here, access, environment and creative technology pages, checked 5 November 2026.