Watford Colosseum is an entertainment venue in
Watford
Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne.
Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...
,
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
, England. Established in 1938, as the Assembly Rooms for
Watford Town Hall
Watford Town Hall is a municipal building in Rickmansworth Road, Watford, England. It is a Grade II listed building.
History
In the early 20th century Watford Urban District Council operated from municipal offices at Upton House in The Parade. ...
, the complex was extended in 2011 with improvements which included new meeting spaces, a new restaurant and new bar facilities.
The venue boasts a
pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...
, designed and built by
John Compton
Sir John George Melvin Compton, (29 April 1925 – 7 September 2007) was a Saint Lucian politician who became the first Prime Minister upon independence in February 1979. Having led Saint Lucia under British rule from 1964 to 1979, Compton ser ...
, which is particularly highly regarded by The Cinema Organ Society.
Performers at the venue have included the
soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
Maria Callas
Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel cant ...
in September 1954 and the
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...
Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti (, , ; 12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerou ...
in June 1995. The Colosseum has been used to record various film soundtracks and is regularly used to host concerts by the
BBC Concert Orchestra
The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale symp ...
, including ''
Friday Night is Music Night''. It has also housed performances by performers including
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
,
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...
, and
Oasis
In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.”
The location of oases has been of critical imp ...
.
The Colosseum is also an important venue for boxing matches with
heavyweight
Heavyweight is a weight class in combat sports and professional wrestling.
Boxing Professional
Boxers who weigh over are considered heavyweights by 3 of the 4 major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Federation, the Wo ...
boxer
Tyson Fury
Tyson Luke Fury (born 12 August 1988) is an English professional boxer. He is a two-time world heavyweight champion, having held the World Boxing Council, WBC title since defeating Deontay Wilder in 2020, and ''The Ring (magazine), The Ring'' ...
building on his reputation, shortly after turning professional, in 2009. The venue also has seen some important and highly popular plays taking place and it regularly holds events in support of charities. The
2020 Snooker Shoot Out
The 2020 Shoot Out (officially the 2020 BetVictor Snooker Shoot Out) was a professional ranking snooker tournament held from 20 to 23 February 2020 at the Watford Colosseum in Watford, England. It was the 13th ranking event of the 2019–20 sno ...
professional
snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...
tournament was held at the Colosseum between 20 and 23 February 2020.
History
Watford Colosseum was built in 1938 as Watford Town Hall Assembly Rooms on the site of an early 18th century mansion, The Elms, which had been purchased by the council in 1919.
It was designed by architect
Charles Cowles-Voysey
Charles Cowles-Voysey (24 June 1889 – 10 April 1981) was an English architect.
Career
Charles Voysey studied at the Architectural Association School and the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. Between 1909 and 1912 he was articled to Horace ...
and acoustician
Hope Bagenal
Philip Hope Edward Bagenal, (11 February 1888 – 20 May 1979) was a British architectural theorist and acoustician who introduced a scientific approach to the acoustic design of buildings.
Education and early career
Bagenal, known by his s ...
,
and cost £186,000.
[ It acquired a worldwide reputation for its fine acoustics,] and throughout the second half of the twentieth century it was used for concerts and recordings by leading orchestras and musicians.
Rising costs and falling attendance led the council to close it in 1994, reopening it in 1995 as the Colosseum in a joint management agreement with a commercial company who had previously operated at the Town and Country Club in London (now known as The Forum, Kentish Town).[ A steady form of income in the 1980s and early 1990s was the takings from Bus Stop 70's discos and when this revenue fell off in the late 1990s the management company got into financial difficulties: Watford Council provided a £200,000 rescue loan to the management company repayable in 2003.
After the management company collapsed in 2004, the Colosseum was managed by Watford Council until April 2010, when it closed to undergo a £5.5 million refurbishment; reopening in August 2011.][ Since the re-opening in 2011, the venue has been managed by ]Qdos Entertainment
Qdos Entertainment was one of the largest entertainment groups in Europe.
Pantomimes
Qdos Entertainment was the world's largest pantomime producer, having produced over 700 productions since it started.
In 2017, Qdos Entertainment confirmed i ...
, which is owned by Nick Thomas and his wife, Sandra.
The refurbishment of 2010/11, which was carried out to a design by RHWL
RHWL Architects (originally Renton Howard Wood Levin Architects) was a British architecture practice based in London, Berlin and Qatar. It was established by Andrew Renton, Peter Howard, Humphrey Wood and Gerald Levin following the establishment of ...
, which subsequently became part of Aedas
Aedas is an architectural firm with eleven International offices founded by the Welsh architect Keith Griffiths. Aedas provides services in architecture, interior design, urban design, masterplanning and graphic design. It was established in 2002 ...
, and undertaken by Kier Group
Kier Group plc is a British construction, services and property group active in building and civil engineering, support services, and the Private Finance Initiative.
Founded in 1928 in Stoke-on-Trent it initially specialised in concrete enginee ...
, included an extension which included grey brick facades which contrasted with the original building and involved large sections of coloured glazing. The internal improvements included new meeting spaces, a new restaurant and new bar facilities.[ The work on the concert hall itself, on which Arup advised, was minimal in order not to disturb the fine acoustics properties of the facility.][ The acoustics had been analysed by an acoustics company in 2009, who reported that the size and "shoebox" shape of Watford Colosseum and the flat floor and the materials used in construction allow for pleasant ]reverberation
Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...
and good sound quality and clarity, such as to make it among the best in Europe.[ The facility which extends to , can accommodate 2,000 people standing or 1,392 people seated.
The venue boasts a ]pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...
, designed and built by John Compton
Sir John George Melvin Compton, (29 April 1925 – 7 September 2007) was a Saint Lucian politician who became the first Prime Minister upon independence in February 1979. Having led Saint Lucia under British rule from 1964 to 1979, Compton ser ...
, which was removed from the Gaumont Palace in Chelsea when it was modernised in 1960 and instead installed at the Colosseum. The organ, which has a four-manual illuminated console, was re-commissioned in 2007, with the first of a series of concerts involving the restored instrument taking place on 12 March 2008. It was returned to its full and original standard in 2011.[ It has been described by The Cinema Organ Society as "one of the very best Compton organs anywhere in the country" and "one of the most versatile civic instruments in use today."][
]
Events and activities
The soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
Maria Callas
Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel cant ...
recorded two albums at the venue, then known as the Assembly Rooms, in September 1954. The first album, ''Puccini Heroines'', included excerpts from ''Manon Lescaut
''The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut'' ( ) is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of ''Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité'' (''Memoirs and Adventures of a Ma ...
'', ''La bohème
''La bohème'' (; ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions ''quadri'', ''tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe G ...
'', ''Madama Butterfly
''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
It is based on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther ...
'', ''Suor Angelica
''Suor Angelica'' (''Sister Angelica'') is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as ''Il trittico'' (''The Triptych''). It received its wor ...
'', ''Gianni Schicchi
() is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. The work is the third and final part of Puccin ...
'' and ''Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is "Nessun dorma", whi ...
''.[ The second album, ''Lyric & Coloratura Arias'', included excerpts from Rossini's '']The Barber of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was base ...
'', Verdi's ''I vespri siciliani
''I vespri siciliani'' (; ''The Sicilian Vespers'') is a five-act Italian opera originally written in French for the Paris Opéra by the Italian romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi and translated into Italian shortly after its premiere in June 1855 ...
'', Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le di ...
's ''Dinorah
''Dinorah'', originally ''Le pardon de Ploërmel'' (''The Pardon of Ploërmel''), is an 1859 French opéra comique in three acts with music by Giacomo Meyerbeer and a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. The story takes place near the rura ...
'', Boito
Arrigo Boito (; 24 February 1842 10 June 1918) (whose original name was Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito and who wrote essays under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, librettist and composer, bes ...
's ''Mefistofele
''Mefistofele'' () is an opera in a prologue and five acts, later reduced to four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera with music by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito (there are several completed operas for which he was libret ...
'', Delibes's ''Lakmé
''Lakmé'' is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille.
The score, written from 1881 to 1882, was first performed on 14 April 1883 by the Opéra-Comique at the (second) Salle Favart in P ...
'', Catalani's ''La Wally
''La Wally'' is an opera in four acts by composer Alfredo Catalani, to a libretto by Luigi Illica, first performed at La Scala, Milan, on 20 January 1892.
The libretto is based on a hugely successful ' by Wilhelmine von Hillern (1836–1916), ' ...
'', Giordano's ''Andrea Chénier
''Andrea Chénier'' () is a verismo opera in four acts by Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica, and first performed on 28 March 1896 at La Scala, Milan. The story is based loosely on the life of the French poet Andr ...
'' and Cilea Cilea or CILEA may refer to:
* Consorzio Interuniversitario Lombardo per l'Elaborazione Automatica, academic consortium in Italy
* Francesco Cilea
Francesco Cilea (; 23 July 1866 – 20 November 1950) was an Italian composer. Today he is partic ...
's ''Adriana Lecouvreur
''Adriana Lecouvreur'' () is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1849 play ''Adrienne Lecouvreur'' by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. It was first performed on 6 November 1902 at t ...
''.[ The conductor for both albums, which were recorded for ]EMI Records
EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succ ...
, was Tullio Serafin
Tullio Serafin (1 September 18782 February 1968) was an Italian conductor and former Musical Director at La Scala.
Biography
Tullio Serafin was a leading Italian opera conductor with a long career and a very broad repertoire who revived many 19t ...
.[
In 1988 Watford was twinned with the town of ]Pesaro
Pesaro () is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Marche, capital of the Province of Pesaro e Urbino, on the Adriatic Sea. According to the 2011 census, its population was 95,011, making it the second most populous city in the Marche, ...
in Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
. In June 1995 the tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...
, Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti (, , ; 12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerou ...
, who had a house in Pesaro, agreed to visit the Colosseum where, supported by the Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, W ...
, he recorded ''Hymn of the Nations
''Hymn of the Nations'', originally titled ''Arturo Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations'', is a 1944 film directed by Alexander Hammid, which features the '' Inno delle nazioni'', a patriotic work for tenor soloist, chorus, and orchestra, composed by ...
'' by Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
. From 1996, the Classic Concerts Trust presented regular concerts by the English Classical Players until the end of 2009. The Colosseum was used to record various film soundtracks, including ''The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'', ''The Sound of Music
''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, '' The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. Se ...
'', and '' Sleepy Hollow''; and among classical recordings, Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber (born 14 April 1951) is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.
Early years and education
Julian ...
's performance of Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
's Cello Concerto, conducted by Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi or Jehudi (Hebrew: יהודי, endonym for Jew) is a common Hebrew name:
* Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999), violinist and conductor
** Yehudi Menuhin School, a music school in Surrey, England
** Who's Yehoodi?, a catchphrase referring to the v ...
. It is regularly used to host concerts by the BBC Concert Orchestra
The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale symp ...
, including '' Friday Night is Music Night'', and has housed performances by performers including The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
, Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...
, and Oasis
In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.”
The location of oases has been of critical imp ...
.[
The Colosseum is also an important venue for boxing matches with ]heavyweight
Heavyweight is a weight class in combat sports and professional wrestling.
Boxing Professional
Boxers who weigh over are considered heavyweights by 3 of the 4 major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Federation, the Wo ...
boxer Tyson Fury
Tyson Luke Fury (born 12 August 1988) is an English professional boxer. He is a two-time world heavyweight champion, having held the World Boxing Council, WBC title since defeating Deontay Wilder in 2020, and ''The Ring (magazine), The Ring'' ...
building on his reputation, shortly after turning professional, by winning a fight against the Northern-Ireland boxer Scott Belshaw
Scott Belshaw (born July 8, 1985 in Aghalee, Northern Ireland) is a professional boxer from Lisburn, Northern Ireland who fights in heavyweight division.
Amateur career
At amateur level, Belshaw fought for the Lisburn ABC in Lisburn and w ...
in a technical knockout
A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...
there in May 2009. Local boxer, Dan Bowie from Holywell
Holywell may refer to:
* Holywell, Flintshire, Wales
* Holywell, Swords, Ireland
* Holywell, Bedfordshire, England
* Holywell, Cambridgeshire, England
* Holywell, Cornwall, England
* Holywell, Dorset, England
* Holywell, Eastbourne, East Susse ...
, won the WBC British Muaythai Boxing title at the Colosseum in November 2013.
The venue also has seen some important and highly popular plays taking place including ''Calendar Girls
''Calendar Girls'' is a 2003 British comedy film directed by Nigel Cole. Produced by Touchstone Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, based on a true story of a group of middle-aged Yorkshire women who produced ...
'', a play about some ladies from Yorkshire raising money by posing for a charity calendar; the play starred Lesley Joseph
Lesley Diana Joseph (born 14 October 1945) is an English actress and broadcaster, best known for playing Dorien Green in the television sitcom '' Birds of a Feather'' from 1989 to 1998 and again from 2014 to 2020. Other television credits incl ...
, Sue Holderness
Susan Joan Holderness (born 28 May 1949) is an English actress on both stage and screen having had appearances in '' Bless This House'' (1974), '' The New Avengers'' (1977), ''Canned Laughter'' (1979),
''The Sandbaggers'' (1980), ''The Cleopatr ...
, Ruth Madoc
Ruth Madoc (born Margaret Ruth Llewellyn Baker; 16 April 1943 – 9 December 2022) was a British actress who had a career on stage and screen spanning over 60 years. She was best known for her role as Gladys Pugh in the BBC television comedy '' ...
, Camilla Dallerup
Camilla Sacre-Dallerup (born 6 April 1974) is a Danish author, life coach, hypnotherapist and former ballroom dancer.
Dance career
Dallerup was born in Aalborg, where she started dancing at the age of two and a half when her mother took her to ...
, Helen Fraser Helen Fraser may refer to:
* Helen Fraser (actress) (born 1942), English actress
* Helen Fraser (executive) (born 1949), British executive and businesswoman
* Helen Fraser (feminist)
Helen Miller Fraser, later Moyes (14 September 1881 – 2 De ...
, Deena Payne
Diane Margaret "Deena" Payne (born 29 August 1954) is an English actress and former singer. She is best known for playing Viv Hope in the long-running ITV soap opera ''Emmerdale''.
Life and career
Payne was born in Orpington, Kent. She used to ...
, Kacey Ainsworth
Kacey Ainsworth (born 19 October 1968) is an English actress, best known for portraying the role of Little Mo in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' and Cathy Keating in ITV drama ''Grantchester''.
Early life
Ainsworth trained at the Royal Centr ...
and Kevin Sacre
Kevin Sacre-Dallerup (born Kevin Bignell on 23 March 1978), accessed 30 May 2007 is a British actor. He is most famous for his performance as Jake Dean in the Channel 4 British soap opera ''Hollyoaks'', a role he played from 2002 to 2010.
Earl ...
and took place in 2012.
The Watford Colosseum regularly holds events in support of charities. In February 2010 the Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk ...
band, ''Gallows
A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...
'', whose performers come from Watford and Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500.
Developed after the Second World War as a ne ...
, put on a performance at the venue which raised funds for the Peace Hospice
The Peace Hospice is a health facility caring for people with a life-limiting or terminal illness, which is funded by public donations, situated on Rickmansworth Road, Watford, Hertfordshire. It is a locally listed building.
History
The facility ...
, a local health facility caring for people with a life-limiting or terminal illness, which is funded by public donations. In October 2011 a charity concert, involving Zulu warrior
is a Zulu language, Zulu word meaning war or combat and by association any body of men gathered for war, for example is a term denoting an army. were formed from regiments () from (large militarised homesteads). In English is often used t ...
s, Ghanaian
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in Ghana–Ivory Coast border, the west, Burkina ...
acrobats and Masai cultural dancers was held at the venue in order to raise funds for an appeal following the 2011 East Africa drought
Occurring between July 2011 and mid-2012, a severe drought affected the entire East African region. > Said to be "the worst in 60 years", the drought caused a severe food crisis across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya that threatened the liv ...
. The rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer, Ms. Dynamite
Niomi Arleen McLean-Daley (born 26 April 1981), better known as Ms. Dynamite, is a British singer and rapper. She is the recipient of the Mercury Music Prize, two Brit Awards and three MOBO Awards.
Early years
She was born Niomi Arleen Mc ...
, arranged a function in support of Great Ormond Street Hospital at the venue in April 2012, although that particular event had to be moved at the last minute because of a leaking roof.
The 2020 Snooker Shoot Out
The 2020 Shoot Out (officially the 2020 BetVictor Snooker Shoot Out) was a professional ranking snooker tournament held from 20 to 23 February 2020 at the Watford Colosseum in Watford, England. It was the 13th ranking event of the 2019–20 sno ...
professional snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...
tournament, which was the 10th edition of the tournament, was held at the Colosseum between 20 and 23 February 2020.
References
{{Watford
Theatres in Hertfordshire
1938 establishments in England
Buildings and structures in Watford