Bristol Beacon

A concert hall on Colston Street in central Bristol, owned by Bristol City Council and managed since 2011 by the Bristol Music Trust. It opened on 20 September 1867 to a Bristol Byzantine design by the local firm Foster & Wood, drew classical music and theatre, filled with wrestling crowds in the mid-20th century, and became one of the most important rock venues in Britain in the late 1960s. Fires gutted it in 1898 and again in 1945, though the original foyer survived both, and it was Grade II listed in 1966. It was named after Edward Colston, the merchant and slave trader whose school had stood on the site, and was renamed after years of campaigning — a decision brought forward in September 2020 following that summer's anti-racism protests in Bristol. The hall closed in 2018 for repair and refurbishment and reopened on 30 November 2023.