The Sanctuary Music Arena was a 22,000 sq ft, 3,500 capacity music venue in Denbigh North, Milton Keynes in the UK. It opened its doors on 6 December 1991 to ESP promotions event called Dreamscape. Its also billed as the first and only designer dance venue in the country.
The Sanctuary saw some of the UK's first legal Raves and was pivotal in the development of numerous underground electronic dance music genres, subgenres and styles. The Sanctuary played host to the UK's biggest dance music promoters, including Dreamscape, Helter Skelter Rave, Slammin Vinyl, The Cult, Gatecrasher, Hardcore Heaven, Cream, Uproar, Sidewinder and Godskitchen. The venue attracted a national audience to its legendary 12 hour all night events.
From 1995 onwards various promoters would occasionally use the adjacent "Rollers UK" roller skating rink and the "Fastrack" go-karting area in conjunction with the Sanctuary, creating an 9,000 capacity multi arena venue, one of the largest of its kind in the country.
The Sanctuary finally closed its doors on 10 July 2004 in which Slammin Vinyl held the final event with a capacity of 12,000 (a big top arena was added, along with totally open air dance space using ground adjacent to the Sanctuary) with an event that hosted some of the best UK hardcore, Drum & Bass, Old Skool and Hard Dance DJs from across the country. Sadly this legendary venue was subsequently demolished to make way for a new IKEA store as part of a development that also included the stadium mk and an Asda hypermarket.
Famous quotes containing the words sanctuary, music and/or arena:
“Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“This is a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for the exhibition of champions.”
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852)