The Saviles Hall is in the Clarence Dock area of Leeds, a rather curious spot with the odd bit of…read moreretail, a few grandiose looking restaurants, plenty of flats and The Royal Armouries within one space. It's an odd location in some senses - you get the impression that once it was built, and everything still looks really rather spanking new, that they assumed folks would flock there to shop and whatnot, but in my few experiences here it's often been really quite quiet. Perhaps it's the nightmare of navigating the Leeds one way system via car, or the slightly out of the way canal-side walk (which is rather pleasant) that puts people off. In any case, that's where she stands. I visited there today, my first ever visit, to attend the Thought Bubble convention -a wondrously magnificent collection of all this graphic, comic and hand penned, for the truly geeky (and some might say, enlightened). For myself, being part-geek, this was an awesome place to spend a few hours, perambulating the large space in search of something special. The trouble is, with such a convention as this, everything catches your eye... I rather needed the Yelp of the graphic novel world to help me navigate which stalls I should stop at, but there you go. I managed to unearth a few gems, needless to say. Other than this event, the Saviles seems to be the place for Christmas dos, Weddings and all manner of other large scale events -the hall itself being gargantuan. I'm sure in the ceiling there were lighting rigs too. Other than that, I've not much to report, except that the refreshment stall was out-of-this-world expensive -£1.70 odd for a bottle of pepsi. No ta. I'll wait. In any case, I'd keep an eye on their programme of events as despite the slightly ghost-town atmosphere nearby, it's not a bad place to be. Plus the canal side wander is pretty lovely -especially in the mist as was today.

What a stunning venue this place is! I've been to a few events here now, most notably was the Spice…read moreYorkshire Speakeasy evening that was held in the main bar/dining area & then an evening in the company of Mrs Barbara Nice (that's Barbara as in Streisand, Nice as in the biscuit!) held in the 'living room' area - although they took out all the comfy sofas & replaced them with massive round tables n chairs! The building, an old gentleman's club (not of the lap dancing variety...) is steeped in history and still has pretty much all of the original features to it. A major talking point is the men's toilets believe it or not, which even still has all of the old block wooden toilet seats & a shoe polishing point in the corner. By all standards I think the cost for hiring a part of the club for a function is pretty reasonable, and they can also cater for your event based on your budget but don't expect a lot of food for the money here. The prices on the bar itself are actually (surprisingly) on the cheap side - all the times I've been in they've had a couple of drinks offers available so I only ended up paying around £2.50 a pint! They do some of their own individual events here so I would definitely suggest checking it out sometime. You won't be disappointed with the venue space.

I've been to a couple of events here now and it's a fantastic space. A lovely main area for…read morepresentations to big groups, useful break-out rooms for smaller groups to work / have meetings / hold classes. There's a great suite of beautiful Macs upstairs to work on. The 'comfort' facilities are good too. Toilets are nice and clean and there's a small kitchen too. If you're organising some kind of conference, I'd definitely recommend checking this place out to see if it would suit your event.