ICC Sydney Theatre

ICC Sydney Theatre is Sydney’s 9,000-capacity concert room within the International Convention Centre precinct at Darling Harbour; the venue currently trades as TikTok Entertainment Centre. Its defining feature is scale with purpose: an 8,000-seat auditorium can shift into a 9,000-person general-admission room, while its fan-shaped tiers keep every seat facing the stage. A 44-metre purpose-built stage gives touring productions serious working space, making this a room for acts whose staging needs reach beyond a conventional theatre.

A replacement, launched at full volume

The theatre arrived through the Darling Harbour redevelopment that displaced the Sydney Entertainment Centre. That predecessor closed on 19 December 2015 after three decades, with Elton John playing its final event; a 9,000-capacity multipurpose facility was planned as its replacement. ICC Sydney opened for business on 20 December 2016 after three years of construction, combining convention, exhibition and entertainment facilities in one precinct.

Its concert identity came into focus six days earlier. On 14 December 2016, Keith Urban launched the theatre with Carrie Underwood during the Australian leg of the ripCORD tour, playing to a packed house of 8,000. That opening night established the intended proposition: a large, production-ready theatre built to host major tours inside a venue also used for conferences and exhibitions.

The room today

The programming serves big concert tours, comedy, dance and other ticketed entertainment, alongside large plenary events. Music listings span pop, rock, hip-hop, electronic, alternative and classical bills. For seated shows, the room is fully forward-facing and designed around clear stage views; for standing shows, the floor lifts capacity to 9,000. It can also scale to 5,000 or 6,000, with in-house production equipment, substantial load-in access and food-and-drink kiosks operating for applicable events.