Hillsong Church Buys Festival Hall

Hillsong Church now owns Melbourne’s icon Festival Hall, the venue where Ian Dury sang ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll’, Ozzy Osbourne sang ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ and the Sex Pistols played. So did those evil Beatles who had that sinister band member Lennon who once said they were “bigger than Jesus”. Hallelejah!

Hillsong, the business started by child abuser, (fact not fiction, google Frank Houston), has paid $23m for an iconic music space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Houston

Festival Hall’s location is 300 Dudley Street, West Melbourne. The venue

The original Festival Hall was built in in 1913 and opened in 1915 as a sporting venue for boxing and wrestling matches. The original building was destroyed in a fire in 1955. The current building was constructed in time for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.

In 1960 general manager Dean Lean Jr started booking music acts for the venue. The Beatles played at Festival Hall on their only Australian tour in 1964.

Festival Hall was the primary music venue in Melbourne in the 60s and 70s before the construction of the building now known as Rod Laver Arena. Its Sydney counter-part, the Sydney Stadium (built in 1908), was demolished in 1970.

As Melbourne’s music culture thrived, more and more buildings were constructed or redeveloped to accommodate the number of events but that also created competition for Festival Hall. The venue has not been upgraded and today is out-dated.

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