It hasn’t been the smoothest of years so far for Aussie live music venues, sadly we’ve seen a shocking total of six venues closing across Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, however it’s been the complete opposite for the lucky folk of Brisbane, who as of this week, will see a massive musical hub open.
Announcing its arrival in February of last month, The Foundry in Brisbane’s entertainment precinct of the Fortitude Valley will welcome punters through its doors for the very first time, and courtesy of The Music, they’ve teased with some photos of the space and they look incredible.
Located at 228 Wickham Street in the heart of the Valley, The Foundry will open March 6 this year. The epicentre of music creativity is a mammoth two level complex that is part 300-person live room, part rock’n’roll bar, part collaborative space and home to 20 creative studios.
In addition to this, The Foundry also offers musicians a place to crash for free within the building, not to mention free rehearsal spaces, sounds unreal, right?
Venue manager Corey Herekiuha spoke at length with The Music about The Foundry’s intentions, first discussing how the venue will benefit performing artists, “We want to be part of a collective of venues in the Valley, but to steer us in a different direction we have the accommodation upstairs for bands, which is going to be included in the venue hire which is itself quite cheap and reasonable for the area.
“Plus there’s a massive green room, it’s big enough that we could pretty much fit another show in there. We want it to be a ‘one stop shop’ experience, so bands can fly in and get a train or cab here and we’ve got backline, a sound guy and lighting guy provided, accommodation provided, the green room with booze and then a late check-out.
“Being a muso as well, one thing I hate on tour is having to get up at 10am after a late night and going to bed at 6am, so we’re going to do a midday or 1am checkout. The location is central, it’s easy to get in and out and there’s a loading zone downstairs so if they do bring extra gear they can load in easily.”
Touching on the creative hub aspect which will see many different industry groups utilise office space within the building, he continued, “We wanted to create an industry hub with a diverse array of people. We’ve got a publicist, a training room for 4ZZZ, a record label, a zine, graphic designers, photographers even an actual artist. It’s going to be very creative and we hope that flows downstairs. We want it to be a vibrant place that complements rather than supersedes what Brisbane already has to offer – we’re all friends and Brisbane is such a small town, so we just want to add to the scene.”
The Foundry opens Friday 6 March, we can’t wait to see what the epic new space brings to Brisbane’s already killer local music scene.
All photographs shot by Markus Ravik.
