Listen to this article:A major £1.6 million renovation of its Stockton club has been completed, with Mecca Bingo adding a new social lounge and expanding the venue’s entertainment offering. The Chandlers Wharf club is Mecca’s largest venue, and the refurbishment has added 168 seats to take its total capacity to more than 1,500. Players will also find a renovated main bingo hall, upgraded gaming machine area and a new space designed for bingo, darts, live sport, food and drink.
The Mecca Stockton investment was completed in early August and was due to be marked with an official relaunch weekend from Friday 4 to Sunday 6 September.
Last year, a regular player at Mecca Bingo Stockton scooped the £50,000 jackpot.
The biggest addition to the club is the new 1825 Lounge, which has been designed to give customers more ways to enjoy the venue alongside traditional bingo.
The lounge features interactive darts, TV screens showing Sky Sports, a DJ booth and a new bar, as well as food and drink. Bingo remains part of the offering, with customers able to play electronically using tablets with an auto-dab function or stick with traditional paper tickets.
Sarah O’Neill, central operations director at Mecca Bingo, said:
“We’ve been making winners in Stockton for thirty years.
“As our biggest venue, with such a vibrant community around it, it made complete sense to embrace the rising popularity of competitive socialising and invest in the club to ensure that Mecca Stockton is fit for the future.”
Its name is a nod to Stockton’s railway history and the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. It incorporates ideas from a similar project at Rank Group’s Enracha bingo business in Seville, Spain. Rank said the aim is to broaden the appeal of the Stockton venue and give customers more reasons to spend time at the club.
The £1.6 million investment goes well beyond the creation of the new lounge. Mecca has installed new carpets and reupholstered seating in the main bingo hall, as well as adding more digital screens. The club’s gaming machine area has also been refurbished and now contains 115 machines.
The extra 168 seats in the 1825 Lounge take the total capacity of the venue beyond 1,500, helping to explain why Rank considers Stockton one of the flagship clubs in the Mecca estate.
This is not the first recent investment in the site either. The exterior of the club underwent a separate major refurbishment in 2023.
Stockton general manager Lynne Butterworth said:
“The creation of the lounge provides a brand-new entertainment space for Stockton, with interactive darts, TV screens, a DJ booth, food and drink, as well as bingo.
“We can’t wait to welcome new and existing customers through the door over the official relaunch weekend.”
Mecca Stockton has been operating for around 30 years and is no stranger to major bingo wins. According to Mecca, players at the club have collected more than £4.8 million in bingo prize money over the past year alone. The venue has also produced a number of major National Bingo Game winners over the years.
The renovated club continues to offer both paper and electronic bingo, and Mecca has been investing heavily in electronic play across its wider estate. During the 2025/26 financial year, 60% of visits to Mecca clubs involved tablet play, while electronic customers accounted for 80% of spending on mainstage bingo. Mainstage bingo revenue itself increased by 12% during the year.
However, the Stockton redevelopment shows that Mecca is also looking to add other forms of entertainment around its main bingo offering rather than simply replacing traditional play.
Mecca scheduled a three-day celebration from 4 to 6 September to officially relaunch the renovated Stockton club. The programme included prize draws, live music, cocktails and themed entertainment, giving existing players and newcomers a chance to explore the new facilities.
A special bingo session was also scheduled for the Sunday evening, with more than £30,000 in prizes available. Players taking part also had the chance to land the £250,000 National Bingo Game jackpot.
The substantial investment in Stockton comes at a time when Rank has been reducing the overall size of its Mecca estate. Nine clubs closed during the last financial year, taking the total from 50 to 41, while the company has concentrated more investment on venues it believes have stronger long-term prospects.
Stockton clearly falls into that latter group. Rather than simply giving the club a cosmetic refresh, the £1.6 million Mecca Stockton renovation project has significantly expanded what is available at the venue while keeping bingo at the heart of the business.
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