The building known as the Empire started out as a Victorian Music Hall in 1884. It is claimed that the first ever moving pictures in Britain were shown at the Empire, by the Lumiere Brothers. The cinema was originally much larger, with 4000 seats, but it was split up in 1967 into a smaller 1,490 seat cinema, with the rest of the building becoming the Empire Ballroom. The Ballroom is now home to the club Equinox, which can hold over 2000 revellers.