The Academy Music Group has expanded into Edinburgh for the first time with its acquisition of the Corn Exchange complex, which has hosted concerts since 1999.
As of today, the O2 Academy Edinburgh will be housed in the historic B-listed building in the city’s Chesser area.
The takeover by the company, which already runs O2 Academy venues in Glasgow, Brixton, Brixton, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle, is expected to see a surge in the number of gigs in the city.
It has already spent more than £500,000 installing a new PA and lighting system ahead of the first show, by Declan McKenna, on Friday. The Corn Exchange was originally purpose-built for trading grains by the city’s council in 1909.
Graham Walters, the chief operating officer for Academy Music Group, said:
We’ve been keen to expand our O2 Academy brand in Scotland for some time and we’re delighted to now be in Edinburgh, it’s an inspiring city with a thriving appetite for music and culture.
We see huge potential with this venue, it fits with our ethos of investing in heritage buildings, with the right capacity of 3000 to bring world-class entertainment to the city. It also has a number of diverse secondary spaces, flexible formats and configurations that we’ll be looking at over the coming months to complement programming and events in the main auditorium.