23 Facts About Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London.

The Exhibition's Royal Commission bought Gore House, but it was slow to act, and in 1861 Prince Albert died without having seen his ideas come to fruition.

The Royal Albert Hall was constructed mainly of Fareham Red brick, with terra cotta block decoration made by Gibbs and Canning Limited of Tamworth.

The Royal Albert Hall was scheduled to be completed by Christmas Day 1870, and the Queen visited a few weeks beforehand to inspect.

In 1906 Elsie Fogerty founded the Central School of Speech and Drama at the Royal Albert Hall, using its West Theatre, now the Elgar Room, as the school's theatre.

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In 1933 German physicist Albert Einstein led the 'Einstein Meeting' at the hall for the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics, a British charity.

In 1936, the Royal Albert Hall was the scene of a giant rally celebrating the British Empire on the occasion of the centenary of Joseph Chamberlain's birth.

In October 1942, the Royal Albert Hall suffered minor damage during World War II bombing, but in general was left mostly untouched as German pilots used the distinctive structure as a landmark.

In 1968, the Royal Albert Hall hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 and from 1969 to 1988 the Miss World contest was staged in the venue.

Royal Albert Hall, a Grade I listed building, is an ellipse in plan, with its external major and minor axes of 272 and 236 feet, and its internal minor and major axis of 185 and 219 feet.

The Royal Albert Hall was originally designed with a capacity for 8,000 people and has accommodated as many as 12,000.

Royal Albert Hall first hosted boxing in 1918, when it hosted a tournament between British and American servicemen.

On 6 April 1968, the Royal Albert Hall hosted the Eurovision Song Contest which was broadcast in colour for the first time.

Royal Albert Hall performed at the Hall as part of his On an Island Tour.

Between 1996 and 2008, the Royal Albert Hall hosted the annual National Television Awards all of which were hosted by Sir Trevor McDonald.

On 2 October 2011, the Royal Albert Hall staged the 25th-anniversary performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, which was broadcast live to cinemas across the world and filmed for DVD.

Royal Albert Hall's performance debuted at number one in the United States with 96,000 copies sold, the highest one-week tally for a music DVD in four years.

Royal Albert Hall has a long association with The Salvation Army, hosting over 400 events since 1895.

Royal Albert Hall held its first 3D world premiere of Titanic 3D, on 27 March 2012, with James Cameron and Kate Winslet in attendance.

Since 2009, the Royal Albert Hall has curated regular seasons of English-language film-and-live-orchestra screenings, including The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gladiator, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Interstellar, The Matrix, West Side Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Back to the Future, Jaws, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and the world premiere of Titanic Live in Concert.

Royal Albert Hall instigated the Concert for George, which was held at the Hall on 29 November 2002 to pay tribute to Clapton's lifelong friend, former Beatle George Harrison.

Royal Albert Hall is managed day to day by the chief executive Craig Hassall and six senior executives.

Hitchcock was a long-time patron of the Royal Albert Hall and had already set the finale of his 1927 film The Ring at the venue, as well as his first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring Leslie Banks, Edna Best and Peter Lorre.