SECC Glasgow : Information + Images

Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre, Scotland

Glasgow arena

SECC building © Richard Davies, photo from foster & partners

SECC Box Office can advise on ticket available for events / concerts
Call re events or buy tickets on 0870 040 4000 or try www.secctickets.com

SECC Arena unveiled Oct 2005

aerial picture of SECC © webbaviation

Foster + Partners: Glasgow SECC - PR

SECC - Glasgow Conference Centre

Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre
Clydeside, Glasgow, Scotland
1995-97
World-class corporate events increasingly demand venues that can stage presentations on an epic scale. Few facilities offer a flexible mix of spaces for conferences, exhibitions, live performances, concerts and corporate functions at every level from the intimate to the vast. The SECC Glasgow is the first venue of its kind on this scale in the UK and one of only four in Europe capable of seating more than 3,000 delegates.

SECC arena © Richard Davies, photo from foster & partners

Within the context of a very tight budget, the challenge at the SECC was to create the most economic enclosure for all the components of a complex brief - auditorium, exhibition halls, concourses - which form the setting for what might be thought of as ‘industrial theatre’. The solution is in the spirit of the shipbuilding traditions of the Clyde and the site on Queen’s Dock. The Glasgow SECC takes a flat sheet material and employs it to clad a series of framed ‘hulls’, which wrap around the disparate elements, including the auditorium fly-tower. These overlapping, aluminium-clad shells - reflective by day and floodlit at night - create a distinctive profile on the skyline.

exterior of SECC © Richard Davies, photo from foster & partners

Industrial theatre requires a neutral, highly serviced environment, which can be transformed to accommodate a wide variety of events. Accordingly, the SECC conference hall is technically state-of-the-art - complete with wings and full back-stage facilities - but is flexible enough to allow large trucks to be driven directly onto the stage. The main SECC theatre provides electronic delegate voting systems, simultaneous translation, projection facilities and sound control booths.

river clyde view of SECC © Richard Davies, photo from foster & partners

Visitors approach the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre from the east, entering beneath a canopy formed by the arc of the building's roof. From the registration area they may enter a 300-seat conference room or go up to the first-floor foyer, which connects with the SECC auditorium and an associated network of break-out and exhibition spaces. The SECC Seating Plan is free of columns.

Clyde Auditorium - all SECC photos

SECC : Building Summary

Armadillo © Richard Davies, photo from foster & partners

The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre building provides a symbolic form, which brings a focus to its location and represents Glasgow. This has helped to strengthen Glasgow's reputation as an international business destination, enabling it to compete with conference and exhibition facilities around the world.

Glasgow SECC : The Team

Client
SECC + Glasgow City Council

Architect
Foster & Partners

Consultant Team
Arup
Gardiner & Theobald
SECC
Sandy Brown Associates
Eric Marchant

Clyde Auditorium: Areas Cost / sqm
Conference Centre (SECC) 13,000 sqm £21.75m £1,673/ sqm
139,932 sqft £155/ sqft
Hall 1 conversion £2.1m
Exhibition Hall 3 5,400 sqm £3.5m £648/sqm
58,125 sqft £60/sqft

SECC Events: 0870 040 4000

SECC Arena © Richard Davies, photo from foster & partners

All SECC Glasgow images at top of page by photographer Richard Davies

SECC : Foster & Partners win Glasgow SECC II

Foster and Partners has won the contract to create an additional £50m concert arena at Glasgow SECC. The 12,500-seater Glasgow arena is part of a plan to transform the 64-acre SECC site into a complete exhibition, conference and entertainments complex.

SECC

Clyde Arena: image © adrian welch

SECC Glasgow opened in 1985 with the Armadillo or Clyde Auditorium added in 1997. Glasgow is now Europe's fastest-growing conference destination, regularly beating other cities such as Paris and London for business. The SECC is the UK's largest integrated conference and exhibition centre.

Glasgow Restaurants

SECC: Box Office 0870 040 4000

SECC II: QD2 project

Masterplan was by Page and Park Architects; now by Foster and Partners
National Arena also by Foster and Partners
SECC Urban Village by RMJM

A £350m urban village is to be built on the banks of the River Clyde at the SECC. A master plan creating a vision for the future of the Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre (SECC) was unveiled in 2004. The development, named QD2 because it marks the second redevelopment of Queen's Dock in Glasgow, the first being the construction of the SECC in 1985, plans to transform SECC's 64-acre site into a complete exhibition, conference and entertainments complex.

The Glasgow SECC masterplan for QD2 was announced in October 2003 for QD2: following a selection process, Elphinstone Land was appointed preferred bidder in July 2004. Elphinstone's objective is to build a sustainable community, which will become part of the fabric of the Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre and integrate the SECC complex with the local Glasgow community.

The QD2 project, which was approved in principle by the Board of SEC Ltd, includes the construction of a purpose-built arena which has the potential to inject £21m into the local economy each year, adding to the £86m generated by Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre annually at present.

SECC, along with Scottish Enterprise, appointed Page and Park Architects together with landscape architects, Ian White Associates in February of 2004 to prepare the master plan that is the blueprint for the future development of the Centre.

Developers will build 1500 homes - many with gardens - a primary school, nursery and minimarket at the west end of what is now the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre car park. It follows publication of Glasgow City Council’s City Plan, which called for the “redensification” of the Glasgow SECC site, allowing the restrictions to be lifted that limited the use of SECC land to exhibition and conference related purposes only

The development, by construction giant Elphinstone Land, would help pay for dramatic plans to transform the SECC Glasgow into a world-beating venue. The SECC II project, along with other developments at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre site, should create around 3000 jobs.

Glasgow Casino

SECC management also revealed detailed plans for a Glasgow casino. They said a gaming resort would be built and run by Kerzner International, whose founder Saul Kerzner was behind South Africa's Sun City. This new Glasgow casino comes on top of plans unveiled in 2003 for a 12,500-seat arena and multi-storey car parks as part of the SECC's Queen's Dock 2 - QD2 - expansion.

The new Glasgow casino, scheduled to open as soon as 2007, will go up only if new gaming laws allow Las Vegas-style resorts in Britain. Dwarfing rival Glasgow projects, the SECC Glasgow casino will have 1250 slot machines and 50 tables. It would also have a 150-room hotel, Glasgow's third five-star establishment, with a roof garden, restaurants, bar & leisure facilities and 1600-space car park; the casino will be linked with SECC's new arena by a walkway, creating a single complex that will help Glasgow compete for lucrative conventions as well as major concerts. The Glasgow casino will take the total QD2 investment to £562m.

Elphinstone

In March 2004, Elphinstone unveiled plans to build Scotland's tallest building in the city centre. The 39-storey building is planned on the site of the old Strathclyde Regional Council HQ at the junction of India Street and St Vincent Street.

If approved, the 440ft skyscraper would top the Red Road flats - Europe's tallest homes at 328ft -and what is now Scotland's highest structure, the Glasgow Millennium Tower at 416ft.

QD2: www.qd2.co.uk

On the SECC Glasgow site the Finnieston Crane is A listed and the North Rotunda and Custom House are B listed.

Scottish National Arena at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre

Foster and Partners are designing this £50m concert arena at Glasgow's SECC. The 12,500-seater Glasgow arena is the first major development of the QD2 project, created as a national arena for Scotland and designed to be among the finest entertainments venues in Europe.

The new Glasgow Arena will be situated to east of the existing SECC complex. Seating for events will be in a mix of fixed, tiered seats and flexible demountable seating systems.

Whilst the Scottish National Arena will focus primarily on entertainments events, its flexibility will enable it to stage large and small concerts, children's shows, ice shows and sporting and other spectator events. It will offer the public an enhanced entertainments experience; there will be a wide range of food and drink outlets throughout the arena to keep queuing times to a minimum as well as a number of private boxes that can each accommodate up to 12 people who can wine and dine in comfort before and after a concert or event.

The Glasgow Arena core business will come from the transferral of concerts and events from the original SECC halls. Crucially, it will free up Hall 4 for conference and exhibition purposes and in particular, bring to an end the costly and time-consuming process of building and dismantling temporary seating for events, which effectively lost SECC Glasgow 70 days in Hall 4 in 2002/2003.

It is projected that the Glasgow Arena will open in 2007. Currently Hall 4 at SECC Glasgow is Scotland's largest concert hall with the capacity to stage concerts / events of up to 10,000, but it is essentially an exhibition hall successfully adapted to take concerts, its multi-purpose nature having drawbacks.

Glasgow Transport Museum

River Clyde Pontoon
A pontoon, intended to help attract new and additional river traffic on the River Clyde, was created in 2003-2004. The £516k Clyde Pontoon is located on the Broomielaw at the end of York Street. It is part of the regeneration strategy for the River Clyde being carried out by Glasgow City Council and a range of public and private partners.

Other developments on the River Clyde include Custom House Quay

Commonwealth Games

EICC - International Conference Centre in Edinburgh

SECC: 0870 040 4000

Glasgow Architecture : homepage

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SECC Glasgow Building - page : adrian welch / isabelle lomholt

Website: www.secc.co.uk/news