Venue Guide for Parents – Midland Arts Centre, or MAC

If you don’t already know it Midland Arts Centre, or MAC, is a multi-purpose arts venue. The venue houses a theatre, a cinema, an art gallery, arts and music workshop spaces, rooms that can be hired by members of the community, front of house gallery spaces, a shop, a bar and a café, the Kiln Café and other performance spaces. It is also located in Canon Hill Park, with Crazy Golf, children’s fairground rides, playground, ducks to feed, lots of green spaces to enjoy and even a little Happy Train in the summer months that my son made us ride virtually every week when he was little. MAC is, therefore, a great place for a day out with the family. 

Getting there and parking

MAC is easy to find as it is outside of Birmingham right next door to the Edgbaston Cricket Ground. You can get there by car, bus or train – although you should know that there isn’t a train within easy walking distance, you would probably need to get a bus from the train station to get to MAC. There’s lots of information on MAC’s website helping you to plan your journey.

So, what I am going to do in this post is take you on a journey through the venue, as if we are going to see a show there. Hopefully by the end of this post you will know what to expect if you are taking your children to see something at MAC. This Venue Guide is aimed for parents, but there are only a few facilities that parents need that other people don’t need to use, like baby change facilities. What I am saying, is that even if you don’t have children, if you are planning to go and see something at MAC then this Venue Guide might be helpful.

As I mentioned above, you can get to MAC by bus, bike or train, and there are plenty of bus stops nearby – look out for Edgbaston Cricket Ground as it is a very large building you cannot miss. If you see the Cricket Ground you are definitely nearby! The nearest train stations are Five Ways, University or Selly Oak. None of them are very close, and they would all involve quite a long walk – which is great if you are after a bit of a walk to get to MAC, so you would probably need to get either a bus or taxi from the train station. There are a number of bike racks at the entrances to MAC if you arrive by bike. If you are driving, you would look out for signs too, yes you guessed it, the Cricket Ground, and the entrance to MAC’s car park is basically opposite the Cricket Ground. The car park doesn’t look very big, and as soon as you enter the car park there is quite a bit section for coach parking. However, this car park is long and thin, running along the River Rea. There are 2 other car parks, one on Russell Road (which has an EV charging point), one on the Pershore Road near the Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park (incidentally, this is a lovely, and larger than you would think Wildlife Park that is worth a visit if you have time). All of the car parks have a sign outside which will give you information about the Canon Hill park closing times at various times of the year. Again, there’s lots of information on the website about getting to MAC, so do check it out to help plan your journey there. The main car park has pay machines dotted around including one pretty much opposite the main entrance to the building, and you can use this machine to pay by card or cash. The Ring/Go app is operational here, and I personally find that this is one of the easiest car park payment apps to use.

So how do you get into MAC once you have arrived? There are 2 entrances to the building depending on which direction you get there from. One entrance is via the park, where you come past some metal fences into a courtyard style area. This area has seating and picnic tables and you often find street food vendors there – something my husband absolutely loves and will encourage us to stop there to see what’s on offer, and sometimes there will be outdoor performers to watch here. I will warn you, though, that there is often an ice cream van just outside this area next to the swans (you can’t miss them, and I have helpfully pictured them below!). You will find one of MAC’s bike racks here next to the venue’s entrances. If you arrive by car and park in the main Queen’s Ride car park next to the building, you can either go straight into the park via a large bridge, or go over the smaller wooden bridge (there is both stepped and ramp access to this bridge) over the River Rea into MAC. I like this entrance, and my children have loved running across the bridge and looking out over the River here. Both entrances open into a large light and spacious foyer area.

Pre-show facilities and experience

The foyer is surrounded by several different areas of the Venue. But if we have just arrived for a show, we probably want to go and pick up our tickets first, just to make sure we have them – although of course these days, the tickets are probably already on our phones. The Welcome Desk, which contains the Box Office and a cute shop selling art supplies, pin badges, books and souvenirs, is just off the foyer either opposite the park entrance or to the left of the car park entrance. I don’t know about your children, but mine try to get me to agree to buy them things every time they see a shop like this. So I either go into the shop prepared to buy something, when they are not with me, or if they are already in the café distracted by food.

So, you have got your tickets, and let’s say you have arrived in plenty of time for the show. Maybe  you fancy a drink before the show, or maybe you haven’t had time for dinner. Never fear, MAC has you covered in both scenarios. We’ll go into the bar during the interval, but for now we’ll head into Kiln Café for a drink and something to eat. Now, MAC has always had a café in roughly the same location, and it has gone through many different iterations over the many, many years I have been visiting MAC. Kiln Café is largely a daytime operation, open until 5pm, although it will be open later on some show days. Kiln Café is open for breakfast and lunch serving things like salads, pizza, jacket potato, seasonal specials, and there are quite a lot of options for vegetarian and vegan guests. There is a children’s menu which has mostly the sorts of options you would expect, like pizza, fish fingers and mac & cheese together with vegan chick’n nuggets. And there are also a range of incredibly tempting cakes and donuts. Kiln Café has quite a lot of seating within the café area itself, and you can also take your food and drinks out into the rest of the front of house areas where you’ll find more seating and tables. On each table in Kiln Café you will find a menu and also a branded object (I can’t think what else to call this thing) with a QR code on top of it that links you through to a website to order from the table, although this didn’t work for me on the day I went in. That doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t actually work, as I often fail to get these things working when my husband gets them working seconds later! Luckily for me, you can also go up to the counter with your table number and order there, where you can pay by cash as well as card/contactless. When I visited the other day I ordered a very tasty donut and coffee, and I have to say I really enjoyed the fact that as you lift the coffee cup up Kiln Café’s branding is there on the saucer – little things….! While we are sat here in Kiln Café, I should tell you that there is free wifi available in the public areas that you can use while you are there.

Once you have finished your drink or meal, you’ll probably want to visit the toilet before going to your seats for the show you’ve come to see. The main set of toilets for the Venue are located downstairs – and there is an absolutely huge sign pointing down there stairs directing you to the toilets. There are male and female toilets down there, and certainly in the women’s toilets there is a low sink available for younger visitors to use independently. MAC has unisex accessible toilets on every level of the venue, including these downstairs toilets. If you find stairs difficult, there is a lift that will take you down to the toilets, as well as up to the upper level of MAC where the dedicated art gallery and some theatre doors are located (there is another accessible lift over in Kiln Café that will take you up to the Hexagon Theatre and a few other rooms, all of which are sign posted). There are baby change facilities down here, as well as separate unisex baby change facilities located just between Kiln Café and the shop, where there are further accessible toilet facilities. MAC also have Changing Spaces facilities available outside of the bar, and next to the Outdoor Theatre. If you would like further information about facilities and services available for people with access needs, then head on over to their website where they will give you more information.

Show-time

Right, onto the show. MAC has a theatre, cinema, outdoor theatre and other performance spaces where shows and events are put on. There is a huge variety of shows on at MAC, so there is bound to be something that appeals to you and your family on at some point. Talking mainly about the main theatre, though many of these things will also apply to other performance and show spaces, the doors to the theatre are on various levels in the building, and you will find information about which door to use on your ticket. If there are shows on where MAC is expecting a large number of babies and very young children, you may find that there is a buggy park available for customers’ use. This is not guaranteed, though and of course if you leave your buggy there, it would be at your own risk. There would be a few booster seats available on a first come first served basis for young children, though of course there aren’t a lot of booster seats as not every show on there is aimed at a family audience with lots of young children. The age at which your child will need their own ticket and their own seat will vary depending on the show, and the Box Office/website will have information for you on this. But as a general rule, children older than around 18 months will need to have their own seat. There are some events on at MAC that are more suitable for younger children, and there are some shows on that would definitely be unsuitable for children. It’s worth saying here that if there is an age limit suggested, e.g. this show is suitable for 8+ or 14+, you may find that the show explores difficult themes, or uses language or imagery you wouldn’t necessarily want younger children to be exposed to. Similarly, there are some shows that are aimed at very young audiences – Babies Academy of Music, for example, that you would regret taking older children to if they aren’t accompanying very young siblings! Just make sure you read the information about the show that is on the website or in their leaflets that you can pick up all over the venue, or ask the lovely friendly staff you see at MAC’s Welcome Desk for advice. For those of you who have access needs, MAC has a range of services they can offer to enhance your experience, including induction loops, large print and audio information available and a quiet room – again there is more information available on the website.

Interval

We have got to the interval, presuming you have gone to the theatre rather than the cinema. You have a few options here. You may want to go along to the bar which serves a range of drinks and snacks, including some sandwiches – in fact the bar is usually open throughout much of the day for drinks and snacks. Or you might want to have a wander around the venue – there are several gallery spaces around the venue many of them in what appear to be corridors through to other parts of the venue. The exhibitions on in these spaces change regularly, and two of the spaces are right next to the bar, so very easy to have a look around. I love the juxtaposition of different art forms that you get in this unique venue. You may have come to see a Christmas dance show, but you might get an opportunity to see an exhibition on climate change or textile art that you weren’t expecting, and that just might make you consider seeing something new that you wouldn’t otherwise have considered going to see.

MAC in general

As I have hopefully made clear through this journey, MAC is not just a theatre, or a performing arts venue. I have talked about the different exhibition spaces as I have gone along, but these spaces are not just used for art exhibitions. The space next to the bar area one year had a train journey installation where you follow a video presentation of a train journey from Birmingham to somewhere in Wales, I must admit I forget where. At the time this exhibition was on my eldest was massively into trains, and we would walk through the park to MAC for a drink and specifically to watch this train journey. We have attended baby and toddler art classes that have taken place in a room just off the side off the foyer, we have gone along for the arts and crafts market. My children haven’t yet attended one of MAC’s in person holiday courses – there are a huge range taking place in the various workshop areas – but I have attended courses there over the years. MAC has lots of workshop spaces for both family- and children- oriented holiday courses, as well as adult education courses. And if you are looking to hire a space, then they have spaces available for that – for example the choir I have recently joined will be rehearsing last MAC over the winter months when it gets just far too cold to use the church we usually rehearse in.

So where do you find information about what you can go to see there? Look at their website which I am linking to here: Midland Arts Centre

Or look at my regular What’s On In Birmingham for Kids posts, one to come next week, but here is September’s to be going on with for now: 

September What’s On For Kids In Birmingham