Hall For Cornwall is one of several UK theatres participating in this year’s The Big Give Christmas Challenge, reaching their £100,000 target in record time with a campaign to provide a brighter future for Cornwall’s young people through the power of performance.

Created by entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Alec Reed, CBE, The Big Give Christmas challenge is the UK’s biggest online match funding campaign, with every £1 donated matched by other funders – doubling the original donation.

“This year’s challenge was launched last Tuesday with organisations given just seven days to reach their targets and access the match funding,” said HFC’s chief executive and creative director Julien Boast.

“We set ourselves an ambitious target of raising £50,000 by the December 10 deadline which, provided we succeeded, would further unlock £50,000 of matched funds from our charity champions to reach a total of £100,000.

"Thanks to the amazing generosity of the community and local businesses we achieved our target a full 48 hours ahead of the deadline. A phenomenal achievement and testament to the passion and confidence in our theatre’s transformation, which will inspire so many of our young people to explore heritage, music, dance and theatre and bring opportunities alive."

The theatre participated in The Big Give Christmas Challenge thanks to a generous donation from The Patrick Trust, a long-term supporter of Hall For Cornwall who has played a key role in encouraging others to support our ground-breaking transformation project and ensure the theatre will continue to delight generations to come.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund this year joined The Patrick Trust and provided vital additional match funding, allowing it to increase our goal and provide the opportunity for us to engage more people in supporting opportunities for young people, and in particular to interact with the heritage in our new building.

As it prepares to re-open in Autumn 2020, it has achieved 93 per cent of the £21.6 million target and is working hard to share our vision both in Cornwall and beyond, and encourage everyone to get involved.

“We’ve worked with passion, grit and gusto to achieve our goal to date” said Julien.

“We now need everybody’s support to secure the final amount and enable us to raise the curtain to fully realise the theatre that Cornwall deserves”.

“The success of the Big Give initiative is a great boost to our community fund raising campaign. Last week we held a Christmas concert at the Royal Cornwall Museum, and later this week we will launch our This Seat Counts campaign – opening the chance to name a seat in our brand-new auditorium - and encouraging people to pass on the passion of theatre, music and dance. “

“Naming a seat is a very personal way to make history and support our future by ensuring that you or your loved one will be a visible part of our beautiful new theatre for years to come."