Max Watt's House of Music is a live music venue on
Swanston Street
Swanston Street is a major thoroughfare in the centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is one of the main streets of the Melbourne central business district and was laid out in 1837 as part of the original Hoddle Grid. The street vertically ...
in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, Australia. The 850-capacity venue is in the basement of the Century Building designed by architect
Marcus Barlow
Marcus Barlow (1890–1954) was a prominent Australian architect in the interwar period, who designed a number of notable central city buildings in his home-town of Melbourne. He is best known for the 1932 Manchester Unity Building, whose Go ...
.
Venue history
The venue originally opened in 1940 as the Century Theatre cinema. Over the subsequent decades it underwent various changes in name and focus, from newsreels to European films, before closing as a cinema in 1985.
The Hi-fi Bar & Ballroom opened in the former cinema in 1998, and become a major live music venue in Melbourne. In 2015, after being placed in administration, the venue became Max Watt's House of Music under new ownership.
The venue also hosts comedy as the Festival Club during the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is the largest stand-alone comedy festival and the second-largest international comedy festival in the world. Established in 1987, it takes place annually in Melbourne over four weeks, typicall ...
, where the
ABC's ''Comedy Up Late'' is filmed.
References
{{coord missing, Victoria (Australia)
Music venues in Melbourne