Iconic Wales Millennium Centre venue ‘put up for sale’

The National Lottery funded Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay has been put up for sale. An advertisement via international property consultancy Knight Frank, released today, shows the venue for sale with a guide price of ‘£priceless’.

However, employees and visitors of the venue need not panic - the property particulars are, in fact, a fake designed for the new National Lottery ‘Just Imagine’ campaign. The campaign is using a range of techniques to encourage the public to consider an alternative reality of what might have been if the National Lottery had not funded more than 420,000 arts, sport, heritage and voluntary projects across the UK.

The National Lottery partnered with Knight Frank to create the advertisement and selected the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff because it has received over £42 million of National Lottery funding through 18 grants since 1997, including £31.7 million towards its total construction cost of £106 million.

The Wales Millennium Centre, which opened in 2004, has since established itself as a world leading arts centre for musicals, ballet, opera and dance. The venue is Wales’s top visitor attraction and welcomes more than one million visitors per year. As Wales’ national arts centre, it employs more than 1,000 people in a campus of nine creative organisations. The venue also contributes over £50 million per annum to the Welsh economy.

Vicki Kennedy, Director of The National Lottery Promotions Unit, said: “Our fake ‘for sale’ advert is one of 31 fun and thought-provoking pieces being released through our Just Imagine campaign in January to help demonstrate the life-changing difference that National Lottery funding makes. National Lottery players have now raised an incredible £31 billion for the arts, sport, heritage and voluntary sectors. The National Lottery is extremely proud of its funding for the fantastic Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff and, by working with our funding distributors, we have helped make our cultural industry the envy of the world.”

Released on Twitter (@lottogoodcauses #JustImagine) and Facebook today, the fake property advert is the fourth in a series of 31 items to feature through January – one for each day and each £1 billion.

The Just Imagine campaign will run through the first four months of the year, with further phases including an original animation movie telling the story of funding, and other “positively disruptive” digital techniques, according to a National Lottery spokesperson.

To enable people to learn more about National Lottery funded projects in their area, the National Lottery has launched a ‘Good Cause Finder’. To see projects in your area, or to find out more about Just Imagine January, visit www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk

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