Ireland's largest fixed-seat theatre opened with Swan Lake and a starchitect's signature. The Bord Gais Energy Theatre, on Grand Canal Square in Dublin's Docklands, was designed by Daniel Libeskind and opened on 18 March 2010 as the Grand Canal Theatre, with the Russian State Ballet of Siberia dancing the christening performance. Libeskind conceived the building as two stages - the 2,111-seat auditorium inside and the public plaza outside - with a soaring glass facade that tilts back in diagonal pleats like a glass curtain, illuminated at night so the whole square becomes part of the show. Construction ran from January 2007 to late 2009 with John Sisk and Son building and Arup engineering, the theatre anchoring the Dublin Docklands regeneration alongside Libeskind-designed office blocks that later filled with international tech headquarters. It is the only Irish theatre with a stage capable of taking major London West End productions at full scale, and the touring calendar shows it - Hamilton, The Lion King, Wicked and Mamma Mia have all run here, alongside opera, ballet, comedy and concert bookings. The naming deal with Bord Gais Energy began on 7 March 2012, was renewed in 2018 and again on a ten-year agreement, making it one of the longest-running arts sponsorships in the country; more than five million people have attended since the partnership began. Ownership has its own Celtic Tiger arc: developed by Chartered Land, opened by Harry Crosbie, passed through NAMA after the crash, and bought in 2014 by Bernie and John Gallagher's Crownway, with Live Nation operating the house. Fifteen years in, the building has done what it was designed to do - given Dublin a West End-scale receiving house and given the docklands a nightly reason to fill Grand Canal Square. The economics are a story in themselves: the theatre routinely tops the lists of Ireland's most attended venues, its long musical runs anchoring restaurant and hotel trade across the docklands quarter - a cultural building doing the urban regeneration work it was commissioned for, night after night.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: Grand Canal Square, Dublin, Ireland

Website: https://www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 2111

Opening Date: 18/03/2010

Serves Food

Accessible