For nearly 140 years Olympia has been where London goes to look at things - from the National Agricultural Hall's livestock shows of 1886 to Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd under the great barrel vault. The Hammersmith Road complex, designed by Henry Edward Coe on a former West Kensington market garden, grew through the National Hall and the art-deco Olympia Central into the country's defining exhibition address, home over the decades to everything from the Ideal Home Show to historic cat and dog shows. The venue has just emerged from the biggest transformation in its history: a 1.3-billion-pound redevelopment co-designed by Heatherwick Studio and SPPARC, six years in the making, that tore down the kilometre of perimeter wall and opened the estate as a 14-acre creative district. The Grand and National halls continue as major exhibition spaces, now joined by a rooftop food-and-restaurant level under a faceted glass canopy of 520 panels on five steel arches, the 250-metre pedestrianised Olympia Way, and Emberton Walk - an internal public street with its own postcode and an 83-metre digital art screen. Live entertainment anchors the new era: the 3,800-capacity British Airways ARC music venue opened with the first phase, two hotels and the Premier League's production studios fill the new buildings, and the 1,575-seat Olympia Theatre - London's largest new theatre since the National in 1976, operated by the Shubert Organization and Trafalgar Entertainment - completes the project in 2027. Around 3.5 million visitors a year are expected once fully operational, served by Kensington (Olympia) station directly alongside. Through all the change, the listed Grand Hall's single-span iron roof of 1886 - among the largest of its era - still defines the silhouette, and the venue's back catalogue keeps its grip on the city's memory: Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows, the first Ideal Home Exhibition of 1908, Hendrix and Pink Floyd in the sixties, and a century of fairs that put whole industries in front of the public. The redevelopment's bet is that exhibitions, music, theatre and food together can make the address a seven-day destination rather than a ticketed occasion.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: Hammersmith Road, London, United Kingdom, W14 8UX

Website: https://olympia.co.uk

Opening Date: 01/01/1886

Serves Food