O2 Academy Bournemouth

About

O2 Academy Bournemouth is a live entertainment venue in Bournemouth, Dorset, England. It is a grade-II listed building. The building at 568–578 Christchurch Road, Bournemouth, was opened as a theatre on 27 May 1895, named the Grand Pavilion Theatre.

Following a change of ownership in 1898, the new proprietors renamed the venue the Boscombe Grand Theatre. In 1905 it was rebranded Boscombe Hippodrome, which it was known as for over 50 years - the longest it held a name - before another name change came in 1956 when the theatre was closed for a refit and reopened as a dance hall called The Royal Ballrooms. Throughout the 1960s and early 70s, the building was used as a music venue, visited by acts such as Pink Floyd, Status Quo, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Hawkwind, The Faces and David Bowie.

Some of these biggest names were during the comparatively short period from 1971 to 1972, when the venue hosted club night Starkers. In December 1972, the venue was turned into a discotheque named Tiffany's, a name it kept for 10 years until 1982 when the building had a multimillion-pound refurbishment and became the Academy Nightclub. The nightclub had one of the first water-cooled lasers and the first...