Private Events

From milestone celebrations to community gatherings, our spaces are designed to bring people together in a setting that feels special. Whether you’re planning a birthday party, celebration of life, awards evening or a social event for your group or organisation, we can help you create an occasion that feels truly personal.

Choose from a range of flexible spaces across the building: the bright and welcoming café bar for relaxed get-togethers, the stylish upstairs bar for intimate celebrations, or our larger rooms for events that need a bit more space. Each area comes with high-speed WiFi, air-conditioning and access to our friendly front-of-house team, who are there to make everything run smoothly.

If your event needs technical support—music, speeches, performances—we can help with that too. Our experienced technicians can assist with lighting, sound and AV to give your occasion an extra touch of polish.

Catering is available on site, with a selection of food and drink options to suit both daytime and evening events. And with our central location with great bus links only one street away and rail links at Colchester Town station, your guests can arrive easily.

Browse through the carousel below to explore our spaces, and click “Enquire today” to start planning your event with us.

Click on the tabs to explore our different venues.

 

  • 10.8m x 8.1m
  • Full capacity: 40
  • Located at the front of the building
  • Floor to ceiling windows
  • Audio induction loop system
  • In-built projector
  • In-built sound system
  • Stepless lift access to the door

Our dynamic meeting spaces are designed with modern functionality in mind, offering flexible layouts to accommodate everything from small workshops to larger team sessions.

With a contemporary design and comfortable seating, these spaces create a professional yet welcoming environment for productive meetings, seminars, classroom-style events and brainstorming sessions.

Each meeting room hire includes:

  • State-of-the-art, soundproofing sliding walls
  • Flexible furniture arrangements, so you can have your room just how you like it
  • A modular design, allowing for groups of up to 8, 16 or 24
  • Hybrid meeting capabilities with in-built 65″ TVs and webcams
  • Audio induction loop system
  • High speed wifi
  • Modern air conditioning at the touch of a button
  • Flipchart and pens on request

 

We have two meeting rooms which are perfect for in-person and hybrid meetings. Both are hired on an hourly basis with discounts available for charities and corporate partners.

Each meeting room hire includes:

  • A state of the art space, seating up to 14, or 6 socially distanced
  • 65″ screen and webcam to connect to others and show off your presentations and content
  • Audio induction loop system
  • High speed wifi
  • Air-conditioning with a remote control to find the perfect temperature
  • Flipchart and pens on request when you need them

 

Click through the carousel to see different venue options.

 

Main house auditorium
Main Auditorium
CE Space
Creative Learning Space
Upstairs Bar
Upstairs Bar
Cafe Bar
Café Bar
Cafe Bar evening
Café Bar
Catering 1
Catering
Catering 2
Catering
catering 4
Catering
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Catering

From breakfast spreads and buffet lunches to elegant canapés and celebration menus, we offer a range of delicious options tailored to suit you.

Explore our catering offer
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Pricing

We know every event is unique – from space requirements to ticketing and catering, we have you covered.

Read our pricing list
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Booking

Please fill out the enquiry form below to get in touch any bookings. A member of the team will contact you to confirm your booking.

Enquire today

HighTide have hired a range of Mercury Spaces for everything from Board Away Days to Workshops with Playwrights. Every booking we make is always incredibly simple, with the dedicated hires team going above and beyond to ensure our events are a success. The welcoming staff across the entire theatre make you feel at home, and having ordered food or used the bar for drinks afterwards, the Mercury Theatre really is a venue we will keep coming back to.

HighTide – General Manager

Very impressed with the hospitality. The breakfast and beverages scored a 10/10. The luxurious laid-back surroundings help make the event a success as well. Given the opportunity to use your venue again I would jump at it. Thank you so much.

In short, everything and everyone was perfect, thank you. And I’m really glad we chose The Mercury for our lunch. It was our lucky day when our original selection let us down.

It’s a really great, comfortable space – staff were very attentive and friendly. It was perfect for our requirements – and if we needed a venue in future, we’d definitely look at using Mercury Theatre again.

I have been receiving incredible feedback … the words “blown away” being used the most frequently, I think! I know for a fact too that for several families, this was their first venture into the Mercury, so I hope that it will prove to be the first of many.

All of our spaces benefit from:

  • Competitive hourly and day rates with discounts for regular use, charities and members of our corporate scheme
  • Free high-speed WiFi
  • Air-conditioning
  • Discounted parking for attendees
  • Accessible parking on site (must be pre-booked)
  • Discounts in our beautiful café bar
  • The services of our professional and friendly staff
  • High-profile city centre location
  • The opportunity for tickets for your events to be sold by the Mercury Theatre box office
  • Opportunity for regular hirers to have first refusal on available hires slots for the theatre and studio stages
  • Catering packages available – add one of our per delegate full-day or half-day packages which have been crafted to suit all needs – and appetites!
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