Events in Albury's Banquet Hall soon to be back on the menu

Albury Entertainment Centre’s Banquet Hall will be back in business as usual mode by the end of the month, with repair works to the collapsed ceiling expected to be completed by 25 July.

The Banquet Hall has been closed to the public since the partial collapse of its ceiling on 5 June and repair work commenced this week.

Following an urgent request for quote process, AlburyCity Council has appointed a local panel contractor to remove and replace the ceiling.

Venue manager Brendan Maher said he was grateful to have a council that had supported the centre through the whole process and acted swiftly to get the repairs underway.

“We are up and running and getting it fixed, so that is great,” he said. “We have been pretty lucky, we only had to relocate a few events for July because July is normally pretty quiet.

“We are on schedule to be completed 25 July and then we roll into a busy six months with the annual eisteddfod for most of August followed by the Twin City Dance Festival.

“We’ve got a few theatre events also coming in, but they weren’t affected by the incident in the Banquet Hall so it’s business as usual there.

“The rest of the year is looking pretty good; we’ve got several debutante balls, a few conferences and then the end of year graduation ceremonies. We are shaping up all right.”

He said management and staff were feeling positive about the remainder of 2024.

“We are just thankful there was no person in there when it happened as that would have been a whole different story.

“We still had a few bookings for the theatrette and the Elizabeth Room which were unaffected this month so in all it has worked out fairly OK.

“With the end of the financial year there was still plenty of work for everyone to do so it probably offered a bit of time for our team to catch up and has allowed a bit of extra time to plan the next six months.”

Albury Mayor Kylie King said it was pleasing to see repairs underway so quickly following the incident.

“Once again, we’re incredibly grateful that no-one was injured as a result of the partial collapse of the ceiling, and it’s great to see that this important community asset will be back to normal operation very soon,” she said.

Future plans for the centre have been unaffected by the ceiling collapse.

“This has no implications for the redevelopment at all,” said Brendan.

“We are still in the planning stage and probably expect to commence late next year or early 2026.

“We have to go through the detailed design phase which will happen soon and then get the construction certificate and then go out to market for a construction company and that all takes a little bit of time.”

The Albury Entertainment Centre has a packed program of theatre and stage shows coming up with the Umbilical Brothers on 13 July, followed by Garage Girls on 19 July and Secret Screening with Beau Miles on 1 August.

The Victorian State Ballet will be performing Beauty and the Beast on 2 and 3 August and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap will be on stage on 8 to 11 August.