About

The Portsmouth Music Experience gallery not only features spectacular touring exhibitions, but visitors are also able to enjoy rooms that reflect on Portsmouth music and the history of the Guildhall, and how this all fits into a wider historical context. Features of an evolving display will include recollections of outrageous stories from moments such as when The Beatles played in the Guildhall to references of Pink Floyd premiering Dark Side of the Moon in the very same building.

There are so many stories about the Guildhall it would have been possible to have built a display simply around this unique history. However, separate spaces of The Portsmouth Music Experience are dedicated to wider musical influences on the city of Portsmouth, including those who have played in Portsmouth’s other fantastic music venues, prestigious and underground.

The exhibition is made up of video elements, audio content of Portsmouth bands performing and all the fantastic photographs that you would expect. These rooms are in their first incarnation and as such there will inevitably be gaps in the some of the finer details, and this is where the public come in; visitors to the gallery are invited to contribute their memories and reminisce about anything and everything involving Portsmouth and music.

These are exciting, dynamic spaces that should be owned, developed and led by those who visit them. The Portsmouth Music Experience has the confidence to defer to experts, and those experts are anyone who has ever attended a music event in Portsmouth since the Second World War, or possibly before. The space is fun, outrageous and unexpected inside the formal setting of the Guildhall.

Whether you have a passion for music history or any of the other amazing exhibitions coming to Portsmouth, or whether your enthusiasm is for local music and Pompey related anecdotes and memorabilia; all of these things will be available for you to explore in your Guildhall.

The Portsmouth Music Experience's sixteen track digital media and 8 track analogue reel to reel recording studio and home of online broadcast station AaA Music Radio has been created by PME Trust members within a redundant office, once the photo-copying room on the first floor of the Guildhall.