First look: legendary snooker venue the Crucible is getting a huge £45 million revamp

You’ll likely know Sheffield’s Crucible for one of two things, depending on your chosen pastime. Thespians know it as a hub for performing arts in South Yorkshire and the city’s biggest theatre. If watching men and women in waistcoats hitting coloured balls into netted holes with a pointy stick is more your speed, though, you’ll know it as the home of the World Snooker Championship.

Either way, you’ll be happy to hear the 55-year-old, Grade II-listed venue is getting a makeover. Sheffield Theatres, which runs the Crucible as well as the Lyceum, the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse and the Montgomery Theatre, announced a £45 million expansion plan for the site earlier this year.

Set to take place in 2028, the project will increase capacity by 50 percent from its current 964 seats to 1,500. Blueprints also include a revamp of the Crucible’s backstage space, which will also service the other Sheffield Theatres venues. A fully accessible rehearsal space will be constructed, and the dressing rooms will be getting a glow-up too. Plus, the expanded backstage area will have additional rooms designed to support a wider range of access needs.

Renders of the revamped theatre have now been revealed, offering a peak at how the space will be transformed. 

Design proposals were first revealed during a Sheffield City Council meeting in July, where the next stage of work and preparation of a full business case was given the green light. The project now needs listed building consent and planning permission approval, which, once granted, will usher in the next phase of design work in 2026 and 2027.

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