Festival Hall

What do Drew Barrymore and Brisbane's Festival Hall have in common? Well, not much really - it's a tenuous link at best. Barrymore has recently directed her first movie, and it is called "Whip It", sounding vaguely like a bondage piece, when it is in fact about the "Roller Derby". Festival Hall (RIP - it has been "redeveloped" too) was the host of roller derby games in Brisbane back in the day. You don't remember the roller derby? It is sort of like football, but the players wear roller skates and chase each other round an oval track. I'm sure that if you go and see the film you'll catch on pretty quickly. Festival Hall was Brisbane's multi-purpose entertainment venue of yesteryear. Situated on the corner of Albert St and Charlotte St, this is what it looked like in 1959.
(Photo: State Library of Queensland and John Oxley Library; #79168)

Originally known as The Stadium, Festival Hall was built in 1910, and was extensively refurbished and renovated by the State government in 1959 for Queensland's centenary, when it was renamed. My father used to go there to see boxing matches in his youth, and boxing was still happening many years later. Tony Mundine (Anthony's father) fought there, and so did local favourite Hector Thompson. The influence of second-rate American television "entertainment" brought the aforementioned roller derby to the Hall, along with professional wrestling and its cast of pantomime characters such as Killer Kowalski and Andre the Giant. But Festival Hall's greatest memories, I think, abide in the shows by well-known performers such as The Beatles, Neil Diamond, and The Police to name a few. I didn't see The Beatles, but I saw the others, and I did go and see Paul McCartney and Wings when they performed there. Here is a photo I took of Neil Diamond when he was appearing at Festival Hall in 1976.(Photo: © 2010 the foto fanatic)

Festival Hall was demolished in 2003 to allow the construction of the residential block Festival Towers, below.
(Photos: © 2010 the foto fanatic)

In fairness, there was no aesthetic reason to keep Festival Hall, and its capacity of about 4,000 meant that it was far too small to continue to attract top-line performers. And, all is not lost - if you walk through the sliding glass doors at the entry (above), you can check out the Walk of Fame (below), a photographic roll-call of some of the acts and performers from across the years, nostalgically surrounded by what looks to be woodwork from the original seating. Yes, even the roller derby and the professional wrestlers have their mementos there.

(Photos: © 2010 the foto fanatic)

The close-up (above) is of one-time Brisbane boy and long-time entertainer Barry Gibb of the BeeGees. Judging by the haircut, it dates from back before he started to sing falsetto.

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