About The MAC

Our Story

The MAC will be in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter and it will be six storeys high. It will include two theatres, three major visual art galleries, a dance studio, education, workshop and rehearsal spaces, offices for resident arts groups as well as a resident artist and (of course) a cool café and bar.

The MAC will open its doors at the end 2011 and will offer a world class programme ranging from blockbuster events and exhibitions to challenging, experimental new works. Across all its spaces The MAC will celebrate and showcase the very best in home-grown arts and culture as well as bringing the rest of the world to Belfast.

Art is all around us, but we need more access, more diversity and more collaboration. Behind The MAC lies a noble ideology - to place the arts at the heart of contemporary life, housed in a new and modern environment. The MAC will attract approximately 200,000 people each year and is set to become one of Europe’s most significant arts centres.

The MAC's origins lies in the Old Museum Arts Centre (OMAC) which for over 20 years has provided Belfast with some of the most original, inspiring and often provocative arts events in the UK and Ireland and we are dedicated to continuing to do so in The MAC - Belfast's first arts centre to be built from scratch.

The building has been designed by an Integrated Design Team led by architects, Hackett Hall McKnight and being constructed by Bowen Mascott JV.