Loughborough’s Generator Arts Venue Finally Opens Its Doors

After more than a decade of fundraising, volunteer graft, and stubborn belief, Loughborough is finally getting the arts venue it deserves. The Generator opens its doors on Packe Street on Friday 24 April — and it is a bigger deal than the town perhaps realises.

Loughborough’s New Arts Hub Opens on Packe Street

The Generator Loughborough, based at the historic Generator Hall on Packe Street, LE11 3BJ, will open to the public with a ticketed launch event — The Big Opening — on Friday 24 April from 6pm to 10pm. The evening begins with a ribbon cutting at 6pm, followed from 6:30pm by the unveiling of the venue’s first exhibition, Our Very Fabric. Drinks and speeches follow at 8pm, with live music from 9pm.

The building itself is a striking piece of Loughborough’s industrial heritage. Built in the 1930s, the Generator Hall originally powered Loughborough College — one of the foundational sites of what became Loughborough University. It later housed the College of Art and Design before falling surplus to requirements and standing largely empty. Volunteers began the campaign to save it in earnest in June 2015, when The Generator Loughborough CIC — a community interest company — was formally established and the long fundraising effort began.

That effort has raised over £3 million, drawn from Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Loughborough Town Deal, and public donations. Renovation work started in April 2024. Nearly two years later, the building is ready.

Leading the venue into its first chapter is chief executive Jess Vollar Bell, 32, a Loughborough-born trained actor and theatre administrator who spent a decade in London managing venues and producing events before returning home to take the role. She told the BBC earlier this year: “Most residents in town will have some connection to the building. It’s not solely about accessibility — it’s about being inviting. This place is for the people of Loughborough.”

What the Generator Will Offer

The Generator is designed as a genuinely multidisciplinary venue — not a gallery that occasionally hosts a talk, or a music venue with a picture on the wall. The programme will span exhibitions, workshops, live music, theatrical performances, comedy nights, and nightlife events. The space will also be available for weddings and private celebrations.

The opening exhibition, Our Very Fabric, curated by Pasha Kincaid, sets the tone deliberately. Inspired by the building’s rich textile history — the area around Packe Street was at the heart of Loughborough’s hosiery and lace industries — the exhibition features works by local artists and community groups exploring weaving, pattern cutting, textiles, basketry, fashion, and printmaking. It is a statement of intent: this is a venue rooted in its place and its people, not a cultural transplant from somewhere else.

Charnwood Borough Council confirmed the opening in an announcement on 9 April 2026, describing The Generator as “a central hub for performances, exhibitions, workshops and creative activity” for the town.

Why Loughborough Has Been Waiting for This

Let’s be straight about something: Loughborough has punched below its weight culturally for years. It is a university town of genuine character — home to one of the country’s top-ranked universities, a thriving student population, a diverse community, and a proud industrial heritage. It has Loughborough Town Hall doing solid work, a handful of independent spaces, and a grassroots creative scene that has survived largely on goodwill and stubbornness. What it has lacked is a large-capacity, genuinely multidisciplinary venue capable of hosting events at a scale that the town’s size and ambition warrant.

That gap has been felt. Touring shows that might logically stop in Loughborough have skipped it. Artists looking for exhibition space have had to make do with what was available rather than what they needed. The creative community has done remarkable things in difficult circumstances — but circumstances matter, and the right building changes what is possible.

The Generator changes the circumstances. It is a large-capacity space with industrial bones and proper infrastructure, run by people who genuinely understand what a community arts venue should feel like. It is not a vanity project or a box-ticking exercise — it has been built, brick by brick, by volunteers who refused to let the building rot and by funders who eventually recognised what was at stake. Eleven years from the founding of the CIC to opening night is not a story of bureaucratic delay. It is a story of extraordinary persistence.

The question now is whether Loughborough shows up for it. A venue like this succeeds or struggles based on whether the town adopts it — whether people actually go, bring their friends, book it for events, volunteer their time, and treat it as theirs. The Generator’s pitch is that it belongs to Loughborough, not to an arts establishment or a funding body. Jess Vollar Bell’s background as a local who left and came back matters here. She knows the town, she knows the building’s emotional pull, and she knows that the hardest thing is not opening night — it is the Tuesday evening three months from now when you need to fill a room.

The Renters’ Rights Bill, the cost of living, the slow death of the high street — Loughborough has its share of pressures, like every English town. Culture is sometimes dismissed as a luxury in that context. It isn’t. A venue where people make things, watch things, argue about things, and feel part of something bigger than their own four walls is not a luxury. It is exactly what a town under pressure needs most.

Get yourselves down to Packe Street on the 24th. The Generator has been a long time coming — and Loughborough should make sure it knows it’s welcome. We will be watching this one closely, and we will keep you up to date on everything that follows.

Have Your Say

Will you be heading to The Big Opening on 24 April? Do you have memories of the old Generator Hall or the Art College? Leave a comment below — we want to hear from you. And if you want to stay on top of what’s happening across Loughborough and Charnwood, sign up for our free local news updates.