The i360 is closing its restaurant as it moves to become a “21st century entertainment hub”, an echo of the original West Pier.
The West Beach bar and restaurant will close on 5 June, with a new “immersive cricketing experience” due to move into the space over the summer.
Three converted shipping containers are also set to be put on the beach in front of the attraction from June to September, with nets inside for players to bat soft balls into as part of the Sixes Social Cricket game.
The i360 has missed most of its scheduled repayments of the original £36 million loan which Brighton and Hove City Council brokered for it from the government’s Public Works Loan Board. With interest, the council is now owed £48 million.
In February, councillors were told it had implemented a new strategy in a bid to boost visitor numbers, which includes walks on top of the i360 pod and “immersive experiences” that mix theatre with food and drink as well as street food stands and a “games bar”.
This month, Julia Barfield, Chair of Brighton i360, said: “Our vision for Brighton i360 is to create a 21st century beachside entertainment hub – a modern day West Pier – offering our visitors an exciting mix of world-class attractions, entertainment, eating and drinking options.
“Sixes will add to the ever-popular Brighton i360 observation tower, the Nyetimber Sky Bar and the adrenaline-fuelled Extreme 360 activities.
“Social entertainment games bars are a huge trend at the moment. Nowhere else in the UK offers this unique combination of top-class entertainment options.”
Sixes Social Cricket sees players use bats to hit soft balls into nets, with points scored depending on what you hit. The containers will be used for nets, with more inside, alongside food and drink.
Calum Mackinnon, Co-Founder of Sixes, says, “We have always dreamed about having a Sixes on the beach and our new location at Brighton i360 gives us just that.”
At February’s meeting, which was prompted by the i360 missing its last scheduled repayment, councillors decided against foreclosing on the debt now because it would risk a closure before the summer season – the best chance of the attraction making enough money to pay down some debt.
So far, the i360 has repaid £5.8 million but, under its original repayment schedule, had been due to stump up almost £18 million by now.
Its next repayment is due at the end of June.
Clutching at straws….
Can’t polish a turd.
Brighton seafront is just all about shipping containers and sheds, now. Tragic.
Was there a consultation involved for Brighton & Hove residents/council taxpayers to give their verdicts on what should be done with the i360?
It is the B&H residents/council taxpayers who are saddled with the colossal debt of this monumental failure in public spending afterall!
Yes Nina. An election.
World class? Hitting a ball into a net is world class? Hmmm
They still don’t get it, do they? People come to Brighton for the Pier, The Lanes, The North Laine, The Pavillion, the beach and it’s promenade. They come in their thousands. There was never any need for a “World class attraction” to be built. The city IS a world class attraction.
What’s that noise?
Oh, it’s the sound of a barrel being scraped
Get rid of the ghastly, costly isore.
Death by metaphor: Yorker on the back foot, clean bowled out by a googly, sticky wicket, hit for eight is just not cricket, shoulder arms, bouncer, hit the wicket, move the boundaries and bat for the other side ….
“Julia Barfield, Chair of Brighton i360, said: “Our vision for Brighton i360 is to create a 21st century beachside entertainment hub – a modern day West Pier – offering our visitors an exciting mix of world-class attractions, entertainment, eating and drinking options.”
HA HA HA HA HA .Tis the Season of Jolly Japes
There’ll be a boot sale there next, a fiver a pitch, to pay us council tax payers back
Desperate pathetic out of touch
Not a chance of paying back what they owe pull the isore down & be done with it
When will they ever learn? This has always been a terrible disaster and nothing can save it. As for comparing it with the West Pier, that is just laughable. That was a work of beautiful architecture. This is a modern day horror.
Well, it is better to try some alternatives out before the inevitable fire sale. Although I can help but marvel about putting entertainments in there like could have been on a pier ?
I don’t get it. They have put in a planning app to have these 3 shipping containers in situ until 2025; the planning manager mentioned in advance that she wasn’t a fan of their utalitarian look, so they have jazzed them up a bit, but they still look like 3 shipping containers, albeit now with doors and windows and things, plonked down willy-nilly for vague purposes like flexible entertainment spaces (no mention of cricket). If we presume that the entertainment providers will want a big slice of the proceeds, whatever they may be, I360 Ltd will incur expense setting all this up etc and take it back, where’s any meaningful money towards the loan?
It’s a shame that Fred Dibnah is no-longer with us; he would be the ideal candidate to chisel-through the base, and knock it down into the sea….
>Social entertainment games bars
It’s an arcade.
Like the ones on the pier. Like the one on West Street. Like the one at the bowling alley at the Marina. Like the one that used to be on top of the Sea Life Centre until it became a Harvester (or whatever it is now). Like the one that used to be under the promenade near the Sea Life Centre (until it closed down). Like the Loading Bar, just past the pier. Like upstairs at the World’s End.
“Nowhere else in the UK,” my Harris.
Ms Barfield’s cliche ridden, over hyped p.r.language is laughable, as is that of the Sixes promoter. Sheds on the beach won’t save the i360 but they might establish a precedent for taking over more of the public beach. That’s a real danger.
If summer doesn’t bring the bacon, I think foreclosures are in the future.
The i360 owes US more than £12 MILLION because of the Green and Tory Councillors who voted to put £40.2M into it. That is scandalous. This rebranding is unlikely to work. The business case was flawed from the start.
Perhaps the shipping containers could be converted into public toilets – that would no doubt be more useful…
Greens wasted £Millions of Public Money when they voted to support this scheme. The Council are already owed £12.38 Million and that amount is rising all the time.
The I360 is currently recruiting for an HR person, so maybe mass sackings are in the offing…
If they brought the prices down it may well attract more visitors! Especially in these cash strapped times, it’s a no brainer really…