Bar Open

Bar Open is a 200-capacity live-music bar on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Its defining feature is the split-level setup: free sets can run in the front bar while multi-act bills take the upstairs band room, giving a night the feel of a pub gathering with a dedicated gig space attached. The venue has presented roots, rock’n’roll and experimental local music since 1998, with an active program across the week.

Three friends, then a shutdown test

Bar Open began in 1998 when three friends, Andy, Jon and Sam, left computer-industry work and found a Brunswick Street site for a bar. The project arrived before the strip had become the dense nightlife corridor it is today; its early identity combined late service, a band room and room for unusual bills. By 2019, co-owner Jon Perring described a 25th-birthday month of gigs, while the venue’s upstairs space had become a regular home for Melbourne bands and Tuesday improvisers through the Make It Up Club.

COVID-19 shutdowns brought the sharpest recent interruption. In July 2020, co-owners Perring and Sam Crupi launched a GoFundMe seeking $70,000 to restart operations and keep the live-music program running amid capacity limits and ongoing costs. The campaign placed Bar Open’s small-room economics in plain view: packed standing gigs and late trade had long underwritten its role as a platform for emerging artists.

A room built for bills and hang time

Today, Bar Open directs gig enquiries to its band booker, a useful signal of a locally focused, direct-booked program. Rock, punk, indie, garage, funk, soul, folk, world music and experimental work form the core, with the calendar also accommodating jazz, electronic and pop-adjacent acts. Expect the upstairs band room for headline sets and the front bar for free music; outside sits a beer garden, while the ground floor has a fireplace for colder nights. Friday and Saturday trading runs to 3am.