Empty buildings will often result in people asking questions and few locations in Guildford have prompted quite as many as the Electric Theatre on Onslow Street. More than a year after the doors shut for what many feared might be for the final time, Guildford Borough Council has taken its clearest step yet towards finding a future for the venue by confirming plans to test a range of potential operating models with a view to bringing in new operators sooner rather than later. Regular readers will know that we have followed the Electric Theatre’s fortunes closely since it went dark.
An Independent Consultant
The Council’s Director of Commercial Services approved a recommendation on the 12th of August to appoint an independent consultant, Blue Horizon Ventures, to help find a new operator for the building. The theatre has stood empty since the August of 2025, when the Academy of Contemporary Music handed it back to the Council. The venue is said to have made a loss of more than £250,000 between 2023 and 2024 and is reported to have been running at an overall loss since 2017, which is something that the Council wants to avoid moving forwards.
Since the closure, the Council has said it wants any future use to reflect the building’s ‘wider social value’ and ‘unique significance’ to the town, with a public consultation held over recent months in order to gather views from residents on what should come next. Through the newly appointed consultants, the Council will now explore whether the Electric Theatre can continue as a cultural and community arts venue, which is the preference of virtually everyone, whilst also weighing up a string of more commercial alternatives if that is deemed the necessary path to take.
What It Could Become
The commercial options being considered are broader than some might expect, ranging from a shop, a café, a restaurant or a gym, through to an office, a museum, a library or a community centre. Nothing has been decided, however, and the Council has been careful to stress that a return to its cultural roots remains firmly on the table. The problem is that the sheer range of possibilities under consideration says plenty about how open the search has become and how little certainty exists around what the future is likely to hold for the building.
Whatever it ends up housing, the Electric Theatre has a degree of form when it comes to reinvention. Built in 1913 as Guildford’s electricity works, it served that purpose until the mid-1960s. It then sat vacant for the best part of 30 years before being converted into the 210-seat theatre and community venue that generations of Guildford audiences came to know and love. With the consultants now engaged, the Council says it expects to provide further updates in the coming months and it seems fair to hope that the building’s future is a positive one.