Tours of the world famous Royal Liver Building will restart later this month following lockdown and will include some new additions. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool’s Royal Liver Building will welcome back visitors on May 17 after being closed for five months due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
The award-winning tour of Liverpool’s most famous building, one of the waterfront Three Graces, has been closed for five months but will reopen with new additions, including a 2020 time capsule.
Called RLB360, the attraction includes a digital projector experience inside the historic clock tower and stunning views of the entire Liverpool city region from the 15th floor. It opened in 2019 and since has welcomed more than 20,000 visitors.
Staff have used the recent five-month lockdown to make the tour and experience even better for visitors including a revamped visitor centre which will include a historic time capsule which contains artefacts remembering 2020.
The Capsule of Culture will be permanently displayed inside the tour and its contents will be unveiled during RLB360’s reopening week. Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK star The Vivienne, and Liverpool FC defender, Trent Alexander-Arnold, were among some of the celebrity names to decide what was included.
Sex And The City star Kim Catrrall was also involved. The Liverpool-born actress sent her suggestions for the time capsule from her home in Canada.
“We cannot wait to open the doors to the Royal Liver Building 360 visitor attraction again. It has been an incredibly difficult period for the leisure industry but we’ve used the lockdown to make the attraction bigger and better,” said RLB360’s operations manager, Chris Devaney.
“We’re excited to unveil the Capsule of Culture which will be on permanent display inside the experience. We are keeping its contents under-wraps until our opening week but people are going to be fascinated by what is included. Some of the biggest celebrity names from the city have been involved in putting it together.
“In addition to this, we’re restarting the amazing visual experience inside the historic clock tower and tours up to the 15th floor. Before the lockdown, we had thousands of people visit RLB360 and we’re hoping people start to come back.
“We’ve got the necessary social distancing restrictions in place and so we’re encouraging people to come down and experience one of the most famous buildings in the world.”