ARKELL PAVILION (SOUTHERN VT ARTS CENTER)

The Arkell Pavilion is a 400-seat auditorium with professional-quality acoustics on the campus of the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester. The SVAC campus sits on over 120 acres of a former private estate. What makes the Arkell unique is its ability to become an open-air venue when the side and back walls are rolled open.

The pavilion hosts SVAC's summer performing arts calendar and serves as the permanent home of the Manchester Music Festival's Summer Series. Since 1974, MMF has brought musicians of national and international reputation to the Arkell stage, with programming spanning chamber, orchestral, operatic, and symphonic pops genres. The space is also used for theater, dance, and literary events.

The Arkell Pavilion was founded in 1965 and has hosted musicians, singers, dancers, actors, and writers for decades. It was named the Louise Ryalls Arkell Pavilion following a memorial concert after Louise Arkell's death in January 1970. The broader SVAC campus began as a private estate in 1917, sold to the Southern Vermont Artists in 1950.