Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Festival Hall Walk of Fame


For nearly 50 years Festival Hall in Brisbane hosted a showcase of international and local performers and activities. At 4,000 seats it accommodated most large concerts during its era. This ranged from perhaps the most renowned performance, the Beatles on 29-30 June 1964, through to the final major gig there, that of Michael Franti on August 9th, 2003. Located within the foyer of Festival Towers, an apartment complex built over the site, the Festival Hall Walk of Fame commemorates the history of the site.


The display in the entry lobby consists of a wall-mounted installation of backlit panels. The entry display is to the Beatles, with the main display incorporating original seatbacks from Festival Hall, with images of performers and other significant figures in the Festival Hall history. Not only are concert performers featured, the venue was used for Wrestling, Ballet, Political Debate and Boxing, particularly as a venue during the Commonwealth Games. There are also concert ticket stubs replicated throughout.


You only need to search Google to find reference to the vast number of performers who played there. From Johny O'Keefe, Billy Thorpe, Frank Zappa, the Bee Gees, the Police, Duran Duran, Powerderfinger and Silverchair to sparsely name a few, it was the city venue to play. There is nothing which has come close to replacing it as the smaller venues in the Valley, whilst intimate, can't hold big acts, and the large stadium venues are purely for the likes of Robbie Williams. However, at the moment the music scene is going right off in Brisbane so they're all still coming! Hopefully all artists can visit this walk and realise the path trodden by so many other greats to get here.

Cheers, I Love Brisbane, Wes.

Click Here for the Google Map Reference for this post.

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