Camp and Furnace are celebrating their 10-year Liverpool anniversary.
The much-loved Baltic Triangle venue opened their doors in 2012 with an idea to bring “all the best bits of a major music festival” together under one roof in the city centre.
Since then, the iconic premises has stayed firm in delivering incredible events while attracting huge names to entertain crowds and providing a simply stellar food offering.
Millions of people have visited Camp and Furnace since its launch, with the Baltic Triangle area undergoing huge regeneration in that time – kick-started by the venue’s pledge to help what was a once neglected part of Liverpool city centre.
Director Paul Speed said: “When we started, we were developing an indoor caravan park and mini-festival site – that was completely isolated from the city centre.
“We were going to be the venue that brought all the best bits of a major festival, like Glastonbury, under one roof.
“Our hope was that Liverpool city centre would grow toward us and it’s fantastic the Baltic Triangle has developed into the area it has become over the past 10 years.
“You tend not to look back too often because we’re always concentrating on the next event coming up.
“However, when you do look back, it makes us very proud of what we have achieved – and that we are still here after a decade.”
Camp and Furnace has long-since been a staple in Liverpool’s food and events scene, having won national awards and attracted the attention of reviews from the biggest media outlets in the country while being described by as “brilliant” by people who say they’ve “never been anywhere like it” on TripAdvisor.
The venue is well-known for its incredible, eclectic and ever-changing programme of events and, in honour of that, we have taken a look back at some of the very best to have happened at Camp and Furnace across the last 10 years.
2012
Camp and Furnace started life with a predominant food offering and their social Sunday Roasts, shared between diners sitting on long tables, quickly became legendary.
2012 also saw the inaugural corporate booking at Camp and Furnace as they hosted Google’s first ‘Engagement Day’ in the UK.
2013
In 2013 things started to shift at what is one of the original Baltic Triangle venues. Food was very much still a major offering, with the critically acclaimed ‘Food Slam’ dominating Friday nights for the following three years as a forerunner of the modern-day food hall.
However, huge events and parties began to come to the fore with the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia in September and a major New Year’s Eve celebration.
2014/2015
In 2014, Lucozade identified Camp and Furnace as the perfect location to film their next advert and the sports drink company brought Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard down to the venue for filming.
Meanwhile, Becky Hill, Ella Eyre and Jess Glynne performed in 2014 as part of a huge MTV gig presented by LIMF at the venue while The Lightning Seeds also entertained crowds as a mix of food and event offerings continued over the next two years into 2015.
2016
Events at Camp and Furnace grew further in 2016 and major established brands like Circus contacted organisers at the venue to host their next party while Night Garden events also gained major prominence.
2017
By 2017 nights were in full swing at Camp and Furnace. Famous faces such as Craig Charles and Carl Cox were gracing the stage while arts and craft fairs visited and huge events took place. Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson was also taken down to the venue as part of a promotional shoot.
2018
In June 2018, Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis set out to film ‘Yesterday’ with Himesh Patel. They identified Camp and Furnace’s Lobby area as the perfect location to shoot their songwriting competition scene with Ed Sheeran.
It was supposed to be set in Moscow but the Liverpool venue was featured instead, with Ed and Himesh both in attendance.
Meanwhile, in the same year, incredible events like Britney v Beyonce and the ASBO Cinema took place with large crowds entertained – particularly with the huge fan parks set up for the sensational World Cup that summer and Sky Sports presenter Chris Kamara hosting a sensational quiz night.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corby also hosted an unbelievable rally in front of 2,000 supporters as the party held a conference in Liverpool that year.
2019
Theme nights, quizzes, major live band performances, DJ sets from stars like Martin Kemp and even weddings were taking place in 2019 at Camp and Furnace.
It was a truly incredible year with fan favourites like Abba vs Chic and Destiny’s Child vs Spice Girls lighting up the venue as international high street brands like Lush also hosted conferences at the venue.
2020
2020 was not easy for anyone and hospitality venues had to soldier on during the Covid-19 pandemic as the world shut down.
Camp and Furnace continued to deliver out-of-this-world events before lockdown though, with the ‘Swingers Club’ brass band and Fleetwood Mac vs Queen live nights.
However, between March 23 and the end of the year only one other event was able to be held.
2021
This year events started to pick back up once again with superstar DJs like Trevor Nelson and Joel Corry taking to the stage while the likes of Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK winner Lawrence Chaney has also hosted an event at Camp and Furnace.
Reds stars Sadio Mane and Naby Keita visited for another photoshoot taking place at the venue while families were entertained by giant dinosaur show Teach Rex and revellers listened to live bands singing Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift or rock classics at various events as incredible hosts set off quiz nights and Bingo Lingo.
