Game Hire at The Athena, Leicester

The Athena is a 1936 art deco cinema that became an events venue, and it still behaves like one. There's a foyer where everyone arrives, a huge former auditorium where the main event happens, and a tiered balcony above it. That layout is unusual, and it's genuinely useful when you're deciding where entertainment should sit. Fun Pro supplies interactive games, arcade machines and photo booths into events at the Athena. We don't hire the venue out; that's Athena's own team.

We're a family-run business, based in Coventry since 2009, about half an hour down the M69. Delivery, setup and collection are included as standard.

About The Athena as an Events Venue

The Athena sits on Queen Street in Leicester's Cultural Quarter, a short walk from the railway station and close to junction 21 of the M1 and junction 3 of the M69. It's a Grade II listed building, originally designed as an Odeon by Robert Arthur Bullivant and reopened as an events venue in 2005 after a long spell of lying empty.

Five spaces across three levels take up to around 1,400 guests seated, or more standing. It's best known locally for awards ceremonies, large corporate Christmas parties, weddings and exhibitions. Extensive sound, lighting and AV are included in the room hire, and there's parking on site, though the allocation varies by hire type so it's worth confirming when you book. Enquiries go to their team on 0116 262 6556.

Spaces at The Athena and the Games That Suit Them

The Foyer

Every guest passes through it, which makes it the single best position in the building for something like a photo booth or a magic mirror. It's a proper reception space with a large bar, cloakroom, a plasma screen and a chandelier overhead, and the chrome doors through to the Cinema Suite give it a natural sense of arrival. Anything that produces a photo or a keepsake works especially well against that backdrop, and prints can be branded to match your event.

The Cinema Suite

The main room, measuring 30 by 28.8 metres, seating 1,000 theatre-style, 700 for a banquet, 450 cabaret or 1,300 standing. It has a large stage, a dance floor, a 10 by 5 metre cinema screen and a full lighting rig. There's plenty of floor here for larger equipment, so racing simulators, retro arcade machines and prize games all work as post-dinner entertainment. One thing to check when you book: the venue describes the suite as tiered, so confirm which parts of the floor are level before finalising where games go, and we'll position accordingly.

The Deco Lounge

A ground-floor room taking 250 standing, with a dual-aspect bar and a plasma screen, used as a breakout space or a drinks reception alongside the Cinema Suite. At 16.5 by 6.8 metres it's long and relatively narrow, so games want to sit along the length rather than block the middle. Shuffleboard, Plinko and a Prize Wheel all suit that shape and that setting.

The Gallery and The City View Lounge

The Gallery is the old balcony on the second floor, tiered, seating 250 theatre-style or 300 for a banquet, overlooking the stage. Being tiered, it isn't a games space, but it's often used as a dining area that guests move into, which makes it worth knowing where they'll head afterwards. The City View Lounge on the first floor is much smaller at 50 theatre-style, with natural daylight and views across the city, and suits a single compact game if it's being used as a breakout.

What Fun Pro Handles, and What We Don't

What we handle:

• Delivering the games to Queen Street on your event date and getting them into position
• Setting up, testing and safety-checking before guests arrive
• Running the games through the evening with our own team on site
• Packing down and collecting at the agreed time

What we don't handle:

• Venue hire, room allocation or floor plans, which the Athena's team manages
• Catering, bar service, AV, lighting or staging
• Anything requiring fixings to the building, given its listed status
• Overnight storage between event days, unless arranged in advance

Planning Entertainment for an Athena Event

The listed status is worth bearing in mind. Nothing we bring needs fixing to walls or floors, but positioning and cable routing should be agreed with the venue rather than decided on the night, particularly in the Foyer where the original features are the whole point. Share your layout early and we'll plan around it.

A helpful quirk of this building is that none of the spaces have fixed seating, so layouts genuinely flex. That gives more freedom than most venues of this size, and it means a floor plan is worth asking for rather than assuming last year's setup applies.

Think about the shape of your evening. Most events here run to a familiar pattern: drinks in the Foyer, dinner and ceremony in the Cinema Suite, then dancing. Entertainment lands differently at each stage. A photo booth in the Foyer catches people while they're arriving and again on the way out; arcade games and prize games in the Cinema Suite come into their own after the formal part finishes and some guests want an alternative to the dance floor.

Because the Athena is a Christmas and awards-season venue above all, December and the spring awards run book up early. Four to six weeks is comfortable for those periods, or around two weeks for quieter dates. Being half an hour away, we can occasionally help at shorter notice.

It's also worth picking a mix. Corporate audiences here tend to span a wide age range, so pairing something energetic with a gentler option like Roll & Bowl means nobody stands around watching.

Getting Games Delivered to The Athena

We're around 25 miles away in Coventry. Delivery, setup and collection are included in the quote, including the extra coordination a city-centre listed building needs.

Queen Street is in the Cultural Quarter, so we agree an unloading window with the venue rather than parking up indefinitely. The Foyer and Cinema Suite are both at ground level, which keeps the route in short once we're there. Our safety and insurance page covers our PAT testing and public liability cover for the venue's supplier checks.

Planning an evening at The Athena? Get in touch with your date, guest numbers and the spaces you've booked, and we'll suggest what suits you.