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About Us

About Us

5 February 2025
The Barn is a multipurpose venue, built in 2023, located in the centre of Ringwood. The venue sits within the grounds of Ringwood School who obtained funding to expand its facilities, and The Barn operates to extend use of this wonderful facility for wider enjoyment.  
 
What We Do 
The Barn is a professionally run venue primarily for the performance of live music, comedy, guest speakers and theatre. We provide the stage for the fantastic performances by Ringwood School students and are the home of Ringwood Musical and Dramatic Society for their Easter and October performances.
The Barn is a receiving venue for touring shows, productions and artists with a busy events calendar. Due to a huge demand from touring promotors, our venue is not available for any private hire by individuals or commercial groups (including theatre and dance schools).
 
Our Auditorium
Our capacity is 600 seated, 750 standing. Our retractable seating allows events to have a number of different seating configurations with no 'bad seats' - you get a great view wherever you choose to sit! Many of our acts love the intimacy of our venue and how close the audience can get.
Our auditorium is fully air conditioned and has level access to floor level stall seats.
 
Our Financial Aims
Significant additional investment was made to tailor the venue for The Barn’s purposes and our success relies heavily on the local community embracing the opportunity to have this new live events venue in the town, something which has been the dream of many people for very many years.  Our financial aim is initially to repay the investment that has been made and then seek to continue to operate sustainably and develop in to a lasting feature for our area. Everything you buy in our auditorium from show tickets to an ice cream helps ensure we can continue to put on the very best entertainment locally. Our volunteers are the cogs in the wheel which make The Barn such a fantastic place to visit, and you could be a part of the team! Our volunteers primarily help with ushering and ticket checking during events, but may also help with our Bar and other initiatives. Please support us – we would love to hear from you.
 
Most of our ticket sales is paid to the Artists and in VAT, with the residual generally being needed to pay for the required technical support of the events. Our booking fees on ticket sales are required to cover the costs of our ticketing system, promotional activity and payment processing fees. Our quirky and quaint bar provides support for other costs and to help make a surplus on events.
 
Technical Information
The Barn is one of the most modern and accessible venues in The New Forest featuring a full theatre sound and lighting system including Nexo line array house PA, retractable lighting grid, motors, Chauvet Professional lighting fixtures, fully sprung floor, deployable stage and retractable seating. Our Cinema projection system boasts a 10,000 lumens laser projector, widescreen automated projection screen and 7.1 Dolby Atmos surround sound. We have a large pool of technical staff to support our events with a vast array of experience in all technical theatre disciplines.