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Music fans can look forward to regular live entertainment at Festival Hall with the Melbourne venue opening its doors again to local and overseas artists.
Boxing and wrestling are also back on the cards at the city’s iconic “House of Stoush”, according to US-based global touring company Live Nation, which signed a multi-year lease on the venue.
Mark Wilson (left) from Jet, and You Am I’s Davey Lane are members of Australian Rock Collective, performing Thursday night at Festival Hall’s re-launch.Credit: Wayne Taylor
It will be officially re-launched on Thursday night, when the Lionel Rose MBE Stage Door will be unveiled in recognition of the late sporting legend – Australia’s first Indigenous world champion – who won 22 boxing matches at Festival Hall. Rose’s funeral service was held at the venue in 2011.
Roger Field, Live Nation’s Asia Pacific president, told this masthead it was “critically important” for Festival Hall to be operating again, and with a capacity for 5,000 people it would fill gaps in Melbourne’s venue landscape.
“We call ourselves a home of live music, and the most musical city in Australia, but this could have been another venue to fall by the wayside, along with The Palace in Bourke Street,” he said.
“We want to make Festival Hall a cultural icon and a destination we all talk about.
Lorde on stage at Festival Hall in 2014Credit: Eddie Jim
“The experience of seeing a gig there is very different to going to Margaret Court Arena … Festival Hall is a rite of passage venue, and there’s very few of those that remain in Australia.”
The Dudley Street venue in West Melbourne, re-built in time for the 1956 Olympics after the original building was destroyed by fire, was purchased by Hillsong Church in 2020, for $23 million. Hillsong will use the venue for weekend church services.
Festival Hall was given permanent protections by the Victorian Heritage Council in 2018, after former owners the Wren family (operating under the name Stadiums Pty Ltd) sought planning approval to redevelop the site for apartment, retail and office space.
Festival Hall’s “chicken wire” between the seats and floor is gone, the white ceiling has been painted black and a new sound system has been installed as part of upgrades to the venue.Credit: Wayne Taylor
The Heritage Council found the building was a place of cultural heritage to Victoria because it was the only major “purpose-built boxing and wrestling venue to physically demonstrate the long-term history of these sports in the state”. Heritage protections were also granted due to the venue’s association with live music.
The original structure, known as the West Melbourne Stadium, was built in 1913 and taken over by John Wren, a well-known bookmaker, in 1915. In 2018, former Planning Minister Richard Wynne said heritage protections would ensure “a renowned heartbeat of Melbourne will live on” and memories of Lionel Rose, the Beatles and other famous Festival Hall moments would be preserved.
“There are improvements we’re determined to make around accessibility, but there’s a limit on what we can do from the perspective of heritage and structure of the building,” Field said this week.
“Backstage areas have been upgraded for artists, and we’ve put in a new sound system. I’m very pleased to say the dreaded chicken wire, as we call it, has also been removed from between the seating areas and the floor.
“There are no foyers, so it’s unique in that respect, and with things that have happened around the venue and the growth in Dudley Street … we need to work with the City of Melbourne to try and make it a better arrival and departure experience for fans.”
Lord Mayor Sally Capp, who’s favourite concert at the venue was Crowded House in 1987, said it was “heartening to see Festival Hall return to Melbourne’s enviable line up” of venues.
“We’re renowned the world over for our live music industry, a huge driver of our nighttime economy … and it’s time for me to get back there,” Cr Capp said.
Festival Hall has regularly hosted live music since the early 1960s, including Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Shirley Bassey, Joe Cocker, Foo Fighters, Lily Allen, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Australian bands the Easybeats, INXS, and the Living End.
The Beatles, on stage at Melbourne’s Festival Hall in 1964.Credit: John Lamb
Thursday night’s industry only re-launch of the venue as a performance space will feature music from the Australian Rock Collective, including members of Powderfinger, Jet and You Am I, recreating the set list played by the Beatles on the same stage, 59 years ago.
ARC bass player Mark Wilson said he and guitarist Davey Lane were both at the same Radiohead show at Festival Hall in 1998, four years before they met each other.
“About six years after that concert I was headlining here with Jet, and Davey was in the support band (with You Am I),” Wilson said. “So, it’s a special place … and we’re back again.”
Lane said he’d watched footage of the Beatles at Festival Hall “dozens of times” and was “beside myself that I was standing there, opening for Jet with my band, in the same place John Lennon stood” in 1964.
Live Nation controls four other Australian venues including Marvel Stadium and Palais Theatre in Melbourne, and owns Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall and Henley Street Music Hall in Adelaide.
Upcoming shows at Festival Hall include Indian rapper Divine’s Baazinger tour on July 1, and British rock band Idles on July 26.
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