After a $6 million refurbishment, Hindley Street Music Hall will open on 15 September with a launch gig featuring West Thebarton, Jess Day, DMA’s and Wafia.

The long-awaited Hindley Street Music Hall is set to open its doors on Thursday, 15 September.

A batch of Australian artists will help break in the new 1800-capacity venue for its launch gig, including headliners DMA’s, Wafia, West Thebarton and Jess Day.

Co-owner of Hindley Street Music Hall and founder of Five Four Entertainment, Craig Lock says he and his team wanted to put their “best foot forward” with the opening night.

“We wanted to book a lineup that would attract 1800 people and start off with a bang and show what we can do from the get go – which is why we went out and put quite a bit of money into the talent budget,” he says.

“[We] tried to get acts that we feel are great live artists but also ones that people are aware of, really want to come and see and are excited about it.”

Ben and Liam from Nova FM will host the opening night, who Craig says are “a great success story” and “the perfect people to host the night and keep the vibe high”.

“We want to kind of engrain as much South Australian talent as we can,” he says.

Jess Day is part of the Adelaide talent scheduled for the launch gig. This image: Supplied

The Hindley Street Music Hall site was previously HQ Nightclub, which opened there in 2017 after being moved on from its Newmarket Hotel home earlier that same year. In January 2020, the club closed and the business was placed into administration.

In the hands of its new owners, which is the combined forces of Five Four Entertainment, Secret Sounds and Live Nation, the building has seen dramatic physical changes to the tune of $6 million.

“We’ve taken out 200 tonnes of concrete, lowered floors, built a mezzanine,” Craig says.

“We’ve done a huge amount of work in here to completely transform the room to be extremely well suited to live music, so we have thought about everything.

“I think people will be quite blown away by what we’ve done.”

In a press release, the venue is described as having been “completely remodelled to include a split-level venue design that provides exceptional viewing experiences from the whole venue, premium balcony viewing areas, modern and spacious artist green rooms, and freight lifts for seamless artist load-ins”.

Craig Lock

Craig says Hindley Street Music Hall’s 1800-person capacity will see it “fill a hole” in the local music scene for artists which draw crowds larger than what The Gov can accommodate (800 people) but fewer than Thebarton Theatre (2000 people).

“I think a lot of people know that we have a lot of great venues for Adelaide in a sort of smaller capacity, but once you start getting into bigger rooms, we just don’t have that many of them,” Craig says.

“If you’re a band and you have sold out The Gov, your next move is ‘I have to now go and sell well over double the number of tickets I just sold last time I toured [to play at Thebarton Theatre].

“Adelaide was actually missing out on a lot of artists because we just didn’t have the right size room for them to play.”

Premier Peter Malinauskas said in a statement the venue would be a “great boon for the South Australian music and hospitality sectors”.

“Not only does it deliver a state-of-the-art venue in the heart of the city, but it will provide South Australians with career pathways in both the music and hospitality industries,” he said.

Although music is in the hall’s name, Craig says they are not restricted by that category and people should expect a range of acts to play at the Hindley Street Music Hall.

“What we’ve got announced right now we’re really happy as a starting point, but I know that the bookings that we’re getting in the future people are going to be really excited by,” he says.

“It literally is the beginning of what we’re doing, and it is only going to get better.”

Tickets for Hindley Street Music Hall’s live event are on sale now on the website.

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