Cactus Room

Cactus Room in Melbourne is a listed 300-capacity venue whose defining feature is its floor-level performance setup: bands and audience occupy the same room, creating the compressed, house-party-scale contact that suits loud local bills. The Thornbury space operates as a rehearsal complex through the week and a gig room on selected nights, with a licensed bar and beer garden folded into the experience.

A factory floor becomes a launch pad

Dave Houston and Neil Smith found the High Street premises in 2017 after it had spent 15 years as a recording studio; earlier accounts describe the building as a button or belt factory. The pair kept its soundproofing, then converted it into three rehearsal rooms and a performance venue. Cactus Room opened in late October 2017 with its first Cacoween Halloween mini-festival, giving the project an immediate annual marker.

Its early programming sharpened the mission. Houston described a DIY, garage-oriented room where performers play on the floor amid the crowd, and the 2018 farewell show by The Shabbab became one documented early-night marker. In August 2023, Houston’s Black Bats launched the album Stay Dead at Cactus Room, a further example of the venue functioning as a home base for artists connected to its rehearsal and recording culture.

The room now

Cactus Room invites live-music and exhibition enquiries and lists a dedicated gig-booking contact; its own site says gigs commonly run Friday and Saturday nights. Punk, garage rock, indie and adjacent alternative music form the core character, while the current diary also frames the room around album, EP and single launches. Physical details stay practical: the large rehearsal room measures 7m by 7m beneath a 5m ceiling, with an Allen & Heath QU16 mixer, FOH speakers, foldback wedges and stage lights. For shows, the floor-level band position, bar and rear beer garden shape the night.