Overview
It's been an unusual year for Melbourne's music scene across the board, but one of its most iconic live music venues now looks set to face its biggest change yet. The legendary Festival Hall has been snapped up by Christian superchurch Hillsong, earmarked to become the new city location for Hillsong Melbourne. As reported by The Age, the new owners forked out a cool $23 million to acquire the historic site, whose stage has played host to a roll call of musical greats including The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Hillsong announced the new via YouTube video over the weekend, with Global Senior Pastor Brian Houston telling viewers: "by God's grace, we've been able to purchase Festival Hall." He explained that a new entity called Community Venues had been set up to acquire the site and that Hillsong would be the anchor tenant. "In other words, every Sunday night, or Sunday morning, or whenever we have church, to be honest, it will be our venue," he says. "But we're going to continue running it as a community venue, it's to reach the community."
According to Houston, the purchase had been in the works for a while and was made using designated funds that were planned ahead of the pandemic.
Hillsong also revealed plans for a complete renovation of the inner city building in the near future, though it won't have free rein. Any future works would have to be keeping with Festival Hall's permanent heritage protection status, which was granted back in 2018.
Originally constructed in 1915, then rebuilt after a fire in 1955, the hall has enjoyed a colourful history. As well as its many famed musical guests, the space has hosted its fair share of significant boxing matches over the years, and even held a number of events during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Festival Hall is located at 300 Dudley Street, West Melbourne. We'll let you know when more dates and details of the renovation are announced.