‘This is a hall for everyone': The hidden Sydney venue that turned its boardroom into a rave cave
For a marathon six hours last Saturday, the City Recital Hall in the heart of central Sydney reverberated with the beats of more than a dozen musicians belting out electro, indie and funk tunes to a crowd of hundreds.
Cult queer party Heaps Gay took over the foyer with a DJ deck, pink fluorescent lights and bare-chested mannequins, seats were yanked out of the cavernous auditorium to make way for a laser-lit dance floor, and the recital hall's usual boardroom was transformed into a heaving rave cave.
The day-into-night Sound Escape party – flanked by recent performances from Mississippi disco gospel ensemble Annie and the Caldwells, Maori soul singer Teeks, Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp, and US alternative pop singer Joan As A Police Woman – was a far cry from the Baroque strains of Vivaldi, Bach and Handel long associated with the Angel Place venue.
It's a bold shift that the hall's chief executive, Kate Wickett, hopes is a harbinger of a more diverse and contemporary musical repertoire – and audience – to occupy the venue. Wickett, a former lawyer and consultant who ran Sydney WorldPride 2023, is one year into the job after she was asked to increase the number of performances, broadening the audience beyond classical enthusiasts, expanding the music genres on offer, and amplifying the decades-old institution's role in Sydney's cultural fabric.
'We have world-renowned acoustics, but it's about diversifying the types of music we play here,' Wickett said.
'We love our key presenters the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Musica Viva, Brandenburg Orchestra, Pinchgut Opera. That is one type of music – classical – which is what we were purpose-built for, but it's really about bringing in new audiences to experience the hall.'
Wickett's mission to transform the venue faces a raft of challenges. Chief among them is the hall's failure to bounce back after the pandemic crippled live shows: It is only utilised to about half its capacity.
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Adding to the obstacles are high living costs, which have softened ticket sales, and the fact its primary audience – though loyal – is small and ageing. Also, the hall's location, tucked in the laneways between George and Pitt streets, means it is often overlooked.
'We're a hidden gem, we're just too hidden,' Wickett said.
'For such a brilliant, centrally located hall, and for such a high-quality venue and beautiful asset, to be empty for half of the year is challenging.
'We want to share it; this is a hall for everyone.'
To that end, Wickett's team is forging ahead with a shake-up of the venue's program to include more diverse and emerging artists, while staying committed to its classical roots and seeking to maximise the hall's adaptability for events.
'Classical is extremely important to us. But we've been perceived at times as being only for classical and not accessible to different kinds of music, and we're trying to head that off by bringing in a variety of different performers.
'It's about electronic, classical, bands, choral, showcasing the versatility of the hall and the opportunity for us to bring new people in to experience it.'
Last year, the venue staged its first 'seats out' performances, removing seats in the stalls to allow the audience to dance to French disco legend Cerrone and Los Angeles hip-hop pioneers the Pharcyde. In contrast, Tangerine Dream and Soccer Mommy performed this week, and coming concerts of Beethoven and Mozart sit alongside acclaimed Kirtan artist Radhika Das.
Wickett said her team was bent on drawing crowds that were younger, who might not have visited the hall, and were from diverse cultural backgrounds.
'We are in the centre of Sydney, and it's about bringing people here from all different parts of the city, different diasporas, and activating this precinct so we can become a beacon of music for people, and really good quality music.'
Wickett also believes the venue's location smack-bang in the centre of the city, behind the Ivy precinct and between railway stations, means a boost in attendance would also be a boon to surrounding bars, clubs and restaurants.
'It's the concept of all boats rising; if we do well, so do our neighbours.'
Wickett says she's also not interested in competing with other cultural institutions, such as the Opera House or Capitol Theatre, saying the various performance venues 'complement each other. We each do different things'.
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The recital hall has been used for corporate events, and for filming: It played a starring role in the ABC series The Piano and an episode of NCIS: Sydney.
The 1238-seat recital hall opened at the base of the 30-storey Angel Place office block in 1999 to meet demand for a new mid-size performance venue.
Unlike the Melbourne Recital Centre, which receives several million dollars from the Victorian government each year, the City Recital Hall is a City of Sydney asset – the council holds a 99-year lease for the venue from developer Mirvac – and is run by a non-profit organisation. The upshot is that the recital hall does not receive any ongoing funding from state or federal governments.
In March, the City of Sydney decided to provide $1 million in funding each year until 2030 – an increase of $300,000 a year based on the previous five-year agreement with the council. About 85 per cent of the hall's income was generated from ticket sales, bar sales, hire fees and other services in 2023-24. Less than 1 per cent of its income was gleaned from philanthropic donations.
Wickett describes the funding arrangement as 'really challenging', and she has been lobbying Chris Minns' government – which has pursued policies to encourage live music and reboot the 24-hour economy – to chip in funds.
'Currently, we rely on funding from the City of Sydney and organic growth, but a real investment in programming, for both local and some international acts, would provide that step change for us to increase utilisation,' she said.
Arts, Music and Night-time Economy Minister John Graham said the hall was a 'fantastic venue, in a great location, with some of the best acoustics in Sydney', but the government's primary responsibility was to fund state-run venues and help them recover and thrive after the pandemic.
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Graham said the government had provided targeted financial support to the recital hall, including COVID recovery funding and sound system upgrades. He also revealed that the recital hall would benefit from a $250,000 Sound NSW grant to upgrade its audiovisual systems and hearing loop.
'High-quality theatres like the City Recital Hall are a vital element of our night-time economy and our cultural life. They can host contemporary and classical music, talks, film and cultural events – which drive business for the surrounding hospitality venues,' Graham said.
Despite the challenges, Wickett remains upbeat about the opportunities ahead. She said the hall had been utilised 198 days in the 2024-25 financial year, up from 179 days two years earlier. She also remains convinced of the role the venue can play in fostering the capacity for live music to connect people from various parts of society, especially in fractious times.
'It's so important for a space like this hall to bring people from different backgrounds, or diasporas, or parts of the community, who can come together and have a really connected and joyous experience,' Wickett said.
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