A round stone bastion standing on a rocky headland above the sea, people walking along the top of the wall
Five buildings · eleven rooms · 24 to 420 seats

The rooms

Everything is inside the walls and nothing is more than fourteen minutes from anything else. Every room below is listed with its seat count, its stairs and its worst seat, before you buy.

Passes from €18
Walking, at a normal pace
04Vaults → Print Works
08Vaults → Glasshouse, uphill
11Vaults → Reading Room, 41 steps
14Anything → Marsamett Wharf
Bastion Nine, Saturday 18.30 — the wall walk stays open until the bell
Three of five buildings

A room is its seat count, its stairs and its worst seat

We publish all three because the alternative is selling you a session you cannot sit through. If a room is wrong for you, write to access@ninetonine.mt and we will move you without an argument.

A long stone hall with a timber roof and rows of wooden pews running down to a lit end wall
420seats · no rake · step-free

Pitkali Vaults

14 Triq il-Fanal · open 09.00–21.00 all six days

The big one, and the reason the programme exists. A barrel vault with a stone floor and no rake at all, which means that from row 14 back you are looking at the head of the person in front of you. The sound is magnificent and the seats are hard.

Worst seatRow 19, left of the column. You will hear everything and see nothing.
AccessStep-free from Triq il-Fanal. Two wheelchair spaces plus companion, held until 48 hours before.
Rooms hereMain vault 420 · side vault 60 · box office and the printed grid
A long disused industrial hall with tall windows down one side and a bare swept floor
180seats · concrete · step-free

Hall B, Marsamett Wharf

Marsamett Quay · open 10.00–21.00, Wednesday to Sunday

A concrete shed on the water that was a boat store until 2019. It is cold until midday and it rings like a bell until the drapes go up at 16.00 on the Friday, which is itself one of the sessions. Fourteen minutes from everything.

Worst seatAnywhere in the back three rows before 16.00 on Friday. Ear defenders are free at the door.
AccessStep-free, but the quay cobbles are uneven for 40 m. We will meet you at the gate if you ask.
Rooms hereHall B 180 · the quay itself, 70 standing, weather permitting
A hall with an exposed timber roof strung with festoon lights and rows of blue stacking chairs set out below
90seats · 41 steps · no lift

The Reading Room, Bastion Nine

Triq ir-Rampa · open 09.00–21.00 all six days

The best room we have and the one we cannot fix. Forty-one steps, no lift, a timber roof and a window that opens onto the harbour. The late readings happen here with no microphone, which means the back four rows genuinely cannot hear.

Worst seatRow 9 and back, at the 20.00 readings. We will not amplify it and we are not pretending otherwise.
AccessForty-one steps with a handrail on one side only. We have looked at a lift four times. It is a listed stair.
Rooms hereReading Room 90 · the bastion wall walk, open until 21.00

And two more buildings

400Fanal CourtyardOpen sky, four hundred chairs out at 07.30 on the Saturday. Shade on the west wall after 15.00 and none before it.07.30–22.00
60The Print WorksBenches bolted to the floor, twelve places at the front and forty-eight standing behind. Oil underfoot; wear something you do not mind.10.00–20.00
24The Glasshouse, Fanal GardensSmallest room on the programme and always too hot. Twenty-four stools without backs, a ramp at the north door, eight minutes uphill.09.30–18.00
An old star-shaped fort on a low promontory seen from above, turquoise water on three sides
04 — the whole site

Everything inside one wall

14minutes from the furthest room to the nearest
09of eleven rooms are step-free
02wheelchair spaces plus companion, held in each

Getting between them

Walking time is the thing the printed grid cannot carry, so here it is. Times are at a normal pace on a May afternoon, which is to say slowly, in the shade, uphill more often than not.

04

Vaults → Print Works

Flat, across the square. The only hop you can do in a session break.

06

Print Works → Courtyard

Downhill, two crossings. Add two minutes on the Saturday.

08

Vaults → Glasshouse

Uphill the whole way and there is no short cut. Stewards will tell you there is.

11

Vaults → Reading Room

Nine minutes of street and forty-one steps. Allow fifteen with anything to carry.

14

Anything → Marsamett Wharf

The long one. There is a lift at the bastion and it works most days.

03

Courtyard → Bastion Nine

Through the arch and left. The one leg nobody ever gets wrong.

Check it against the grid

Access, in detail

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Which rooms are step-free?

Nine of eleven. The two that are not are the Reading Room, which is forty-one steps, and the side vault, which is four steps with no handrail. Every step-free room holds two wheelchair spaces and a companion seat until 48 hours before the session.

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Is there a hearing loop?

In the Pitkali Vaults and Hall B, yes, on every session. In the Reading Room, no, and the 20.00 readings are deliberately unamplified so a loop would carry nothing. Live captioning runs on the three recorded talks each day.

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Where do I park?

You do not. There are four blue-badge bays on Triq il-Fanal and nothing else inside the wall. The ferry runs every twelve minutes until 22.30 and lands eleven minutes from the Vaults.

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Can I bring a dog?

Assistance dogs anywhere, and water bowls at all five box offices. Other dogs in the courtyard and on the wharf only, and not at the 19.30 long table on the Saturday, because there are four hundred people and no room to step over anything.

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What if it rains on the Saturday?

The courtyard moves into the Vaults and we lose 120 seats doing it. The call is made at 06.00 and posted on the hoarding, at every box office and by text to anyone who gave us a number. In six editions we have made it twice.

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Is there anywhere quiet?

The side vault at the Pitkali Vaults is unprogrammed from 09.00 to 21.00 every day — sixty seats, low light, no sessions in it, ever. It is on the grid as a blank column and that is on purpose.

Eleven
Eleven rooms · 1,650 seats an hour at the peak

Now pick the hours you want to be in them

Day pass €18 · six-day pass €74 · bench sessions €14 on top. Access questions to access@ninetonine.mt, answered inside two working days.

Buy a pass
See who is on
Seats, by room
420Pitkali Vaults, main
400Fanal Courtyard, open sky
180Hall B, Marsamett Wharf
090Reading Room, 41 steps
024The Glasshouse, smallest of the eleven