Queen Elizabeth Hall

Great venue for music, easy to get to and not bad for shows either.
I’ve booked tickets for a couple of events including most recently, a band called Punch Brothers. Sound carries really well in this room and there really aren’t any bad seats. I had a seat in the second to last row in the back as the event was almost sold out but I still had a great view of the stage. The seats are confortable and on tiered levels (but sadly don’t recline).
The only major let down is that the onsite bar doesn’t appear to stock much choice in terms of food. There also aren’t many restaurants to shout about in the area. But I guess you could always bring your own snacks?!

I’ve seen a few things at Queen Elizabeth Hall now — mostly a cirque du soleil type show with French Canadian lumberjacks called Timber! and also The Punch Brothers live in concert. And both were quality.
It’s a great venue to watch a show. The seats are slanted nicely so wherever you’re sitting, even last row, you’ll be able to see everything. The seats are also beautiful leather and insanely comfortable. There are even venues right there in the Southbank which are a lot less comfortable.
To see a concert, it has it’s pros and cons. The acoustics are wonderful and the music beautiful. However, there is no standing section at all, so you will be passively sitting there the entire time listening to the music. Not bad if you like sitting, but not great if you like standing and moving and dancing at a show. It felt a little… calm, for a concert.
However, it’s a small complaint. I’d come back for any show again, it’s a great large venue to see anything.

Gosh, I’m so torn on this place. The exterior is so hard — a depressing grey concrete façade that blends in with the grey London sky. There is nothing appealing about the exterior and if you base this «book on its cover,» you’d probably not enter. It’s just a big concrete eyesore.
The interior is a bit of the same. Dated. Depressing. Concrete. Not much of an offering (though full bar). It’s just a big space that hasn’t been touched since it was built.
Positives:
*The venue is small, so pretty much any seat is a good seat and there are no obstructed seats.
*Beverages can be brought into the theatre. This includes beverages not purchased at the venue itself.
*Seats are wider than normal and there is ample leg room.
*Pitchers of tap water and cups are set out for consumption.
Negatives:
*The seat cushion is super hard. Not in a bad way. More of in a way that it may have been recently replaced with brand new cushions and they haven’t been broken in yet.
*The seat seats (the part where you rest your bum) does not flip up. Therefore, when someone needs to get in/​out, you basically have to walk out of the row, let them out, and then walk back to your seat. You can’t stand in front of your seat because then you’re standing in the walkway and because the seat doesn’t flip up, there’s not added room to stand.
*The seat backs are low. They only come up to an adult’s mid-​back. It’s really weird and not comfortable because you can’t lean back fully.
As for how the venue works with the performance, it was OK. We saw Timber! (family show) and the venue worked. Sound was good. We could see just fine even though we were in the upper deck. Not sure how well a music concert would translate here — the same is just too open that it would seem the sound would just echo but I’m not sure.
The important question: Would I see another performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall? Yes.

I saw Kate Nash here for a charity concert the venue is awesome, intimate, easy to get to, in the winter there are night markets all around.

The second largest venue in the Southbank arts complex after the Royal Festival Hall.
Opened in 1967, the architecture is pure brutalism, a style that most people probably hate and only a few like. I don’t really like the style myself but if they keep it well maintained and clean it can work, otherwise it could descend into a depressing place very quickly. The exterior is grey and forbidding with those walkways at different levels designed to remove you from a sense of where the ground level is and cause disorientation. Inside it’s better. Rather than try to disguise the grey concrete they’ve decided to keep it honest and there’s a decent foyer bar and seating area which works quite well.
The venue houses the large Queen Elizabeth hall performance space used for dance, music and gigs, more on the avant garde end of the spectrum as well as the smaller Purcell Room. The seats are comfortable with black leather cushioning and the concrete brutalist design works quite well for the actual auditorium space and is simple and open with steeply raked rows of seats and is perfect for the more modern type of works here.

This is a great place if, like me, you are disenchanted with huge venues where the emphasis is on pack-​em-​in and charge em high.
Its a really intimate space, based on a classical mini amphi-​theater stage design with two levels of seating, each in three blocks and with superb front row spaces for disabled and their carers — this great aspect can’t be understated because for once if you’re disabled theres no cricking of the neck or any disadvantage for being up close when you have the best seats in the house, and why not indeed? (I can never understand why they can’t make the effort in cinemas to provide disabled space at a decent distance from the screen — when was the last time you wanted to sit 20 feet away from the screen? but sorry, thats another rant)
So, back to the venue, great access to your seats and with an online booking system where you can see which seats are available and pick where you sit.
It really depends on the type of show for which seats are best. For music I would recommend the first 6 rows of the second central block and note that the fifth row is much more elevated than the fourth so rows one and five of this block are really good.
For other shows closer to the stage is better — we sat second row for the recent ‘Cirque Invisible’ (brilliant!) season, but with only about 40 or so rows in the whole space, everywhere will give a decent spot, and the seats are comfortable too!
The staff are real helpful, there’s a big bar space outside and to be really fair, they keep the ticket prices to a reasonable level despite the usual high quality of the artists and events.
Finally, a big up for the box office team, they’ve always been responsive and helpful whether by phone or email. Enjoy!