The venue for the 2029 World Snooker Championship is still unknown, but one ‘incredible’ venue is being backed to stage the sport’s biggest event.
The Crucible has hosted the World Championship since 1977 and will continue to do so after a contract was signed to keep the tournament at the Sheffield theatre until at least 2045.
However, as part of that deal the Crucible will be revamped and extended by 500 seats, meaning it will not be able to host the 2029 edition of the World Championship while the work is carried out.
That is the best case scenario, with the possibility that the event will need to find a new home for more than just one year.
The temporary World Championship venue has not been announced, with familiar places for snooker like Alexandra Palace in London, the Barbican in York and Manchester Central all touted as possibilities.
Another impressive venue currently used on the World Snooker Tour is the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, where the Northern Ireland Open will be staged again this month.
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Northern Ireland’s Jordan Brown reached the quarter-finals of the event last season, beating the likes of Zhao Xintong and Shaun Murphy along the way.
He feels the venue – with a capacity for snooker of around 1,400, is perfect for the sport and ready to host its biggest tournament.
‘I’m not being biased because it’s obviously my home tournament and venue, but I’ve said it loads of times in the past that the Waterfront would be a perfect venue to hold the World Championship,’ Brown told Metro.
‘Anywhere you sit in the crowd is good, with the way it’s set up with balconies overlooking the arena. I think it’s the absolute perfect venue, why not have it there?
‘It’s not too far away from where it’s held in Sheffield, a 40 minute fight. I think it would be great for Belfast, with the fans, you’d get a great turnout for it, that’s guaranteed.
‘You’ve seen it with last year’s final [Jack Lisowski 9-8 Judd Trump] and Mark [Allen]’s final with John Higgins – very, very special occasions. If it was the World championship, boy, you’d be in for a treat.’
Lisowski landed his first ranking title by edging out his good friend Trump in a brilliant final last year in Belfast and would love to play a World Championship in the same venue.
‘It’s a cool idea,’ he told Metro. ‘It gets my vote. I love the place. It’s incredible.
‘I’ve been going there for years. One year I lost early and I stayed for another five or six days because Judd was in it. I was just going out in Belfast drinking and he was still in it. He played Ronnie in the final, it was amazing.
‘Then to then play him there myself, it was very special. Luckily I was playing well enough to deal with it because it was getting quite rowdy, at the end especially, it was rammed.
‘That was my dream when I started playing snooker, playing in somewhere like that, so it made it extra special. It couldn’t have happened in a better place.’
Lisowski will be back to try and defend his title, starting his campaign against Huang Jiahao on Sunday October 18.
Last year’s epic final came in emotional circumstances, not just against a close friend, but only a few months after the unexpected death of his father.
Jackpot remembers the rush of emotions after the match ended, saying: ‘When I first won, I was just gone and then I felt like I was going to pass out, felt really light-headed. It was really weird, I felt like I was dreaming.
‘It doesn’t really sink in, then you’re just floating and going home, seeing everyone at home, my family, my sister came down from London the next morning. It was just so special, it was perfect.’