Storyhouse Celebrates Over One Million Visits In Its First Year

Storyhouse will mark its triumphant first year with a day of celebrating with the community on Friday 11 May.

The largest public building and the most ambitious creative project the city has ever seen, Storyhouse is the only building of its kind in the UK: unifying a cinema, library and theatre.

An astonishing 1m customers have passed through Storyhouse's doors on Northgate Street, meaning that it is officially one of the UK's largest cultural visitor attractions.

Storyhouse has sold over 180,000 tickets to theatre shows and events and had over 250 cinema screenings, and 30,000 cinema tickets bought. Almost 150 community groups from across the borough use Storyhouse as their home. In its first year the library loaned 258,000 books. Children's book loans have increased by 50% since Chester library moved to Storyhouse.

Storyhouse has won several prestigious awards including the Building Award for Best Refurbishment, the Brick Award for Best Public Building, was highly commended at the RICS awards and was nominated for Best Building at the Stage awards.

Andrew Bentley, CEO, Storyhouse said:

It is with enormous pride that we look back at the first year at Storyhouse. We've only been open for a year but feel Storyhouse has already had a huge impact on the life of Chester. The community has whole heartedly embraced the building's spaces. We have some truly exciting plans for 2018 and beyond and more great reasons for people to visit and take part.'

During its first year, as well as its seasons of repertory theatre (the largest outside of the RSC and National) and touring productions such as Cilla, Evita, Blood Brothers, The Play That Goes Wrong and Frantic Assembly's Things I Know to Be True, the cinema has screened a diverse film programme and Storyhouse has run a number of social impact events and festivals, including WOW in partnership with the Southbank.

Alex Clifton artistic director of Storyhouse said:

Storyhouse has made the city of Chester even more of an exciting place to live for artists, creatives and its communities. The building is fizzing with creative ideas and debates, people come from all walks of life to connect and tell their stories'.

Storyhouse celebrates turning one this Friday 11 May, there will be a performance of A Little Night Music, the Tony award-winning musical by Grammy winner Stephen Sondheim. Film screenings and a series of features across the building including performances by schools, choirs, acoustic singers, dance, storytelling and cake!

To find out more visit storyhouse.com

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