The Forum

The Forum is Melbourne’s 2,000-capacity standing concert room within the former State Theatre on Flinders Street. Its defining feature is the atmospheric auditorium: a cerulean ceiling dotted with lights, built to suggest an open night sky above the crowd. Cabaret-style booths border the downstairs floor, so a sold-out rock show can feel theatrical as well as dense. Upstairs, a separate 520-seat room gives the building a smaller, cinema-scaled second stage.

A picture palace, divided and revived

Opened in February 1929 as Union Theatres’ State Theatre, the building was designed by American cinema architect John Eberson with Bohringer, Taylor & Johnson. Its original 3,371 seats made it Australia’s largest cinema, and Eberson’s atmospheric-theatre design supplied the Moorish exterior and simulated twilight sky within. Television-era audience shifts drove Greater Union to divide the auditorium during the early 1960s, creating the downstairs Forum and upstairs Rapallo; a 1981 refurbishment recast them as Forum I and Forum II.

The Melbourne Revival Centre bought the complex in November 1986 and used it as a meeting place for almost a decade. David Marriner acquired it in 1996, converting the rooms into a live-music and cabaret venue. That change preserved the huge downstairs auditorium for amplified shows while keeping the upstairs theatre available for film and smaller performances.

Two rooms, very different views

The programming centres on touring live music—rock, metal, pop, electronic, R&B, alternative, indie and folk—with comedy, cabaret, film and special events also in the mix. Forum I suits high-energy standing crowds, with a spacious stage, booths and foyer-bar areas around the main room. Forum II offers 520 tiered seats, a small thrust stage, surround sound and a large cinema screen, making it the pick for a seated set or screen-led event.