State Theatre

State Theatre in Sydney is a 2,000-seat proscenium house whose concert experience begins well before the first note: a Gothic entrance sequence runs through the 14th-century Gothic Hall, Empire Room, Rotunda and French Empire foyers before opening into the auditorium. Built as a 1929 picture palace, it brings a formal, fully seated scale to pop, rock, jazz and theatrical bills, with a heritage interior that frames the show as deliberately as the stage.

A picture palace that survived the bulldozers

Union Theatres bought the former Evening News offices and a George Street building in 1926, cleared the sites, and commissioned New Zealand-born theatre architect Henry E. White with American designer John Eberson. Stuart Doyle, Union’s owner, conceived the theatre as part of the company’s Million Dollar Theatres expansion; it opened on 7 June 1929, designed for talking pictures yet equipped with orchestral facilities and a Wurlitzer. The opening programme paired The Patriot with organist Price Dunlavy, bandleader Will Prior and René Maxwell with the State Beauty Ballet.

In the early 1970s, amid commercial redevelopment across historic Sydney, its future became a major conservation fight. Protection under NSW heritage law kept the building in place. Following restoration, it reopened in 1980 with Bette Midler’s concert film Divine Madness; Midler had played a series of live concerts there two years earlier. Since 1974, it has also served as the Sydney Film Festival’s annual two-week home.

A grand room built for presentation

State Theatre works as a seated, single-auditorium venue, with stalls, circle and upper circle arranged around a 12.6-metre proscenium. The stage measures 18 metres wide by 14 metres deep, and the orchestra pit can accommodate 30 players when stalls seats are removed. Its booking range covers concerts, dance, drama, musical theatre, cinema, conferences and corporate events. For gig-goers, expect presentation-minded shows across pop, indie, rock, Latin, folk, R&B, jazz and alternative, with heritage rigging limits requiring careful production planning.