Earls Court exhibition ticket hall

Having been down there a few times whilst working at Earls Court, I definitely wouldn't open in in the state its in!

But the supervisors at Earls Court have to run the escalators there for about half an hour once a week to keep them in working order, which suggests it could be opened again. As I understand it, LU have stated that the exhibition centre would have to pay for the extra staff required to open that exit, which they politely refused to do, and it hasn't opened since.

Well, there is a ticket office down there as well...

But the Warwick road exit does quite happily cope with the traffic for almost all events... in the year I was on the stations, we closed it once due to overcrowding.

Is the Exhibition Hall exit the one that had uplighters on the escalator?

To be more precise, it's actually accessed from the Piccadilly line concourse (the level under the District platforms/top of the escalators). As chrish says, there are two large gates which are permanently locked (found at the west end of said concourse). Behind the gates is a long passageway which leads to two escalators with a fixed stairway in the middle.

The Exhibition exit does indeed lead right inside the Exhibition centre - there's an emergency exit to the right of the escalators in the Exhibition ticket hall and you can see where it comes out cos there is an obvious small building in the right hand corner of the car park

There are, if memory serves me right, six barriers and one manual gate making up the gateline.........and a one window ticket office. It was quite a cushy little number if you got a spell down there - and you could even have a smoke once you crossed into the Exhibition centre's area ;D ;D

During the last few years of use, it was only ever opened for the ideal home show - but as chrish says, the agreements over it's opening fell by the wayside and that was that.

It is still used, but only by LUL's trainers. They can teach Escalators & Gateline stuff to new & existing staff without affecting the operational railway or getting bothered by passing customers.

With regard to the Warwick Road exit, if it gets really busy they'll just open the gates up - that has the effect of providing less of an obstruction. In actual fact though, it's actually a good thing that the Warwick road exit is so narrow - it actually helps to manage the crowds by funneling them down into a more manageable flow. The other thing that helps when people arrive for an event is that the exit signs from the District platforms are more obvious at the Earls Court road end - so people are unwittingly led into avoiding the Warwick Road exit altogether ;D ;D

Indeed - I forgot that one ;D ;D ;D

Not a false wall, no - there are two huge metal gates at the opposite end of the passageway to the escalators. I suppose if you looked from a distance, they would just blend in as a wall - but closer inspection will reveal otherwise