'It's about dreaming differently' - The Piece Hall boss on venue's roaring success
The Lead sits down with chief executive Nicky Chance-Thompson who has put the Halifax venue firmly on the live music map
Hello and welcome to the eighth edition of The Calderdale Lead.
For today’s long read I sat down with Nicky Chance-Thompson, the chief executive of The Piece Hall in Halifax to look back on a record-breaking 2024 for live music at the venue and have a peek into what’s coming up in 2025
I found Nicky to have a really infectious personality and it’s really no surprise that she’s able to attract some of the biggest acts in the UK (and beyond!) to make a stop off in Calderdale and play at the brilliant venue she looks after.
We know that The Piece Hall contributes a huge amount to the local economy with its concert series and having chatted to Nicky, I’m certain that next year is going to be even bigger than this year!
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‘Sting wanted to play here because The War on Drugs did…’
The success of Halifax’s Piece Hall probably comes as no surprise to any local resident.
Since it re-opened in August 2017 - on Yorkshire Day no less - the Grade I-listed 18th-century cloth hall has welcomed millions of visitors and provided the backdrop for The Antiques Roadshow, The Tour de Yorkshire, BBC Children in Need and Good Morning Britain.
But it’s the summer concert series - which has seen acts as diverse as Elbow, Sting, Limp Bizkit, Grace Jones and Cheryl Crow play - that really gets people talking.
So how did a building which lay abandoned, unloved and unused, for so long become the epicentre of live music in West Yorkshire?
I suggest to the venue’s chief executive Nicky Chance-Thompson, a Londoner by birth but now a very proud advocate for Calderdale, feels the energy of the place may have something to do with its success.
She said: “There is a magnetism to it because it is such an amazing building. It's unexpected that it's here in Halifax. Why is it unexpected? I don't know.
“Probably because people didn't know it existed for a long time. Clearly did in Georgian times, Victorian times, the local people knew about it. But outside of Halifax, the borough, I still meet people from Leeds who tell me they've never been.”
She then recounts a tale of bumping into a couple of American music fans on the balcony, first mistaking them for crew members but finding out quickly they’d hopped on a plane to experience the Piece Hall first hand.
“I thought they might have been from the artist management,” she laughs. “And there were just two people from Houston who had read about the Piece Hall on the plane back to America one time and thought, ‘wow, we're going to go back there’.
“So they flew over to watch Air and Underworld in the same week and then flew back to Houston. Clearly because they've heard how brilliant it was here to experience the concert.”
I’m keen to find out what goes into putting together such a diverse line-up.
Looking at the gigs announced for 2025 already - for which more than 100,000 tickets have already been sold - there’s everything from Gary Barlow, The Who frontman Roger Daltrey and two nights from former Beautiful South maestro Paul Heaton through to The Human League, Busted, Supergrass and The Deftones.
Nicky said: “What really determines who we get is what artists are touring and what is their schedule? So are they on tour and what type of tour?
“If they're on arena tours, it's very unlikely you're going to get them to come to the Piece Hall because their production is scaled up to a big sort of capacity delivery, not a small capacity delivery. We're about 6,000. So we're sort of in the middle of small and really big.
“It's really a blend of things. So Paul Heaton, for example, was probably one of the most asked for artists that our members and fans of the Piece Hall asked for. So I will request it.
“Sometimes I'll request act because I want to try and diversify as much as we can - female artists, people of colour, as well as sort of some of the big rock acts, which tend to be traditionally white in their nature.
“Unfortunately, it's just a reflection of the music industry that, you know, there was a dominance of a particular colour and gender, if you like, for a long time, which is now getting readdressed.
“We haven't got so many this year, sadly, but we did have a very female strong with Grace Jones and Sheryl Crow last year.
“Often Live Nation (the gig promoters) will suggest some artists either because they're sort of blowing up on Spotify or TikTok, which seems to be the way in which people are accessing artists now.
Artists themselves have made it known to Nicky that they’re keen to play the venue and that does sometimes make negotiations a little easier.
“Johnny Marr actually said, when he came up and he played with the Charlatans ‘you know Nicky, this place is all artists are talking about right now’. He said that they're just fascinated at the rise of this place as a venue and how these cool people all want to play here’.
“We had calls from Liam Gallagher a couple of years ago because he wanted to understand how he could play The Piece Hall. We didn’t manage to make that happen but we’ve had his brother here twice.
“Sting wanted to play here because The War on Drugs played here and I love The War on Drugs, you know, they're like amazing. I loved Underworld and I think when artists see really cool artists playing here, they think, ‘yeah, I want some of that’.
“It is really weird how Sting wanted to play here because The War on Drugs played here. Because you’d expect it to be the other way round.”
So is there anyone who Nicky - who moved to the borough in 2006 and is also a Deputy Lieutenant of West Yorkshire - would love to see grace the Piece Hall but hasn’t yet happened?
“I've made no secret of this, Bruce Springsteen is up there for me. Obviously Madonna, she's a queen, you know. Yeah, Dr. Dre, people like that.
“I mean, they're not cheap, you know, they're going to come at like a million, two million dollars at least a night.
“And it'd be whether or not they can find it in their hearts to do a kind of B&M price as opposed to a Harrod’s price! But, you know, who thought Sting would play it? Who thought Nile Rodgers would play it? They were all a dream.
“People laughed at me when I said that. I said, I'm going to have Nile Rodgers play it, I'm going to have Sting, and they just laughed and said, no, you're not. You're going to have, I don't know, the Pink Floyd tribute act or something.”
Just as our conversation is coming to an end, it’s no surprise that Nicky reveals she’s even reached out The Boss personally to try and make things happen.
She said: “And I even wrote to Bruce Springsteen, you know, I sent him a letter saying, it'd be great for you to come and play here. And who knows, maybe he'll have a change of heart and put the Piece Hall on his list of venues.”
There’s been no reply yet but if Nicky has her way, Bruce will be winging his way to Halifax at some point during her tenure.
There’s still plenty more to come in terms of the 2025 programme but already Nicky is thinking beyond next summer.
She’s keen for the venue to keep riding the wave of success but knows that it’s always going to be a challenge.
“We've got some great momentum. We have sell-out shows. I know that that won't last forever. It doesn't, because there'll be a new thing or a new next best thing.
“And, you know, we need to make sure we're ready for that. And that often requires just some different thinking and different dreaming.”
That’s all for this week’s edition. We’ll be back on Wednesday with the next issue.
Until then, enjoy the rest of the weekend and don’t forget to share The Calderdale Lead with your friends!
Andrew