The team at London's legendary Royal Albert Hall have peeled back the curtain on Dua Lipa's recent one-off show and their ongoing efforts to change perceptions of the venue.
Dua Lipa played with the Heritage Orchestra in October in a special concert that featured a surprise guest appearance from Elton John. The gig was subsequently broadcast on ITV1 and released as a live album.
Speaking in the February issue of Music Week, the Hall's CEO James Ainscough, director of audiences Louise Halliday and director of programming Matthew Todd discussed how the performance came together.
“One of the challenges for us is that there’s a lot of demand for dates," explained Todd. "Very often it’s the popular contemporary artists who have shorter timescales when they’re planning their touring and record releases. Because of the pressure on the diary here, it can be quite challenging to make room at short notice and to have that opportunity.
"We were in conversation with Dua’s management team, they knew there was a space between her doing Glastonbury and then touring more widely next year. They wanted a celebration, a one-off showcase, so we were able to keep tabs on what was happening and hold a date.”
Halliday wowed at the scale of the production, noting that seeing the build on the day was "really quite something".
When you get a great artist who’s given the licence to respond to the environment they’re performing in, that’s when you get magic
James Ainscough
"When you’re working in this building, you might often peek into the auditorium to see what’s happening," she said. "And this was big, there were hundreds of people working on it.”
Ainscough, who returned to the iconic venue in 2023, having served from 2008-17 as director of finance and administration and COO before leaving for Help Musicians, suggested the televised performance showcased the Hall at its best.
“When you get a great artist who’s given the licence to respond to the environment they’re performing in, that’s when you get magic," he said. "And this is a very particular environment. The shape of the auditorium means you’re naturally surrounded by the audience. You get a greater sense of intimacy. It’s a five-and-half-thousand-person group hug.”
Other notable RAH concerts of late have starred artists such as Raye, Laufey, Aurora, Nas, who celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut album Illmatic, and Cypress Hill, who brought their iconic Simpsons episode to life by playing alongside the London Symphony Orchestra.
The venue, which has upcoming shows with acts including Gary Barlow, Daryl Hall, Father John Misty, Annie Lennox, Fabio & Grooverider And The Outlook Orchestra, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Bonnie Raitt, also hosts country and Americana event The Highways Festival, which debuted in 2023, highlighting the versatility of the building.
“I think, for a lot of people, their knowledge of what we do at the Royal Albert Hall can come through certain moments," said Todd. "They are often moments that are also associated with other institutions, such as the Last Night Of The Proms or the Festival Of Remembrance.
"Those are clearly very, very important moments for the country to be able to get together, but there are also other ways in which we can show our identity.”
We’ve always known that we want to open up to more people, but it doesn’t mean you have to be closed to anyone either
Louise Halliday
Todd suggested that genre-specific bookings helped show the Hall in a new light.
“It changes in the artist community that the genre belongs to," he said. "When you have someone like Nas play, it sends out a signal to audiences, too. People for whom Nas was formative in their youth might think, ‘I didn’t expect him to play at the Royal Albert Hall, but actually, the Royal Albert Hall is for people like me.’
"With country and Americana, it’s a growing genre and area of music here, and we’re seeing that coming through, with a lot of the UK artists who’ve been influenced by country making some of those connections. Highways is an important staging post in our calendar.”
"It comes back to the point about consistency," added Ainscough. "We have had country music before, we had Ricky Skaggs play here at the peak of his powers. But if you don’t have a country artist the following year, then it’s just a one-off.”
Furthermore, Halliday shared her belief that widening the RAH's music palette has been a gamble that has paid off handsomely.
“With the diversification of the genres of music on our stage, I think a lot of people who run venues would be worried about moving away from your core audience," she said. "It’s high risk, it might hurt you on the bottom line. But actually, what’s happened at the Hall is the opposite. We’re utterly thriving through broadening out. We’ve always known that we want to open up to more people, but it doesn’t mean you have to be closed to anyone either.”
Subscribers can read the full interview here.
