Adelaide Town Hall

Love love coming here. The last time I came was for a school choir competition, which was held in the Auditorium. The Auditorium can fit about a thousand people, and is the room where they house the organ. The Organ is an absolutely beautiful handmade, light and dark wood enormous beast of a thing: even sitting at the back of the theatre it takes your breath away. The acoustics in the Auditorium are incredible, the sound reverberating over the stone pillars and ornate ceilings.
The banqueting room is also beautiful and full of old world Victorian craftsmanship and design. I wish I had more occasions to visit this place, the old world charm and luxury make me feel hopelessly lower class but in a good way, like Jennifer Lopez’s character in Maid in Manhattan. Play on Organ, play on.

It’s actually quite a picturesque space, I was there late last year for the wakkikirri (or however you spell it) primary school performance.
I was surprised to find how big the performance space actually is, the seating isn’t exactly gold class but it is staggered so if you happen to have a giraffe seated in front of you then you wont have to crane your neck to get a visual piece of the action.
There is no car park, how annoying. it is truly, extremely, annoying. this is a sidestreet job guys, unless you have some gold change for parking, in which case I suggest parking under the Adelaide tafe because it is cheaper than the others.
Inside the hall is quite beautiful, a big staircase, white pillars, picture something from a Marylin Monroe film, oldstyle elegance. Your shoes click on the floor, I’m satisfied.

The Adelaide Town Hall is one of our most striking landmarks in terms of old time architecture. When it was opened back in 1866 the claim was boldly made that the building was «the largest municipal building south of the Equator». The Town Hall was designed by Edmund Wright, designer of many of Adelaide’s architectural gems. Wright’s original building was not as we know it today and our modern Town Hall is actually made up of four separate buildings. In the 1950’s those four buildings were combined to make the one building as we know it today. I find that quite an incredible fact as the building appears so seamless to me — but I’m no expert.
Inside the Adelaide Town Hall I think my absolute favourite piece of art is the statue of Queen Adelaide located in the foyer. Adelaide of course is named after Queen Adelaide and I have always loved the fact she’s standing there in what looks like old fashioned riding gear complete with top hat.
The Town Hall has been the scene of some of our great moments in South Aussie history from the Royal Visit in 1901, to the Beatles visit in 1964 and of course The Crows first AFL victory in 1997.
I do agree with Sarah B though, it’s a bugger for parking in that area!

The Adelaide Town Hall is a beautiful and significant part of Adelaide’s history and is a great venue space for the Arts. Having been there for a singing concert where a friend was performing, I was able to see how moving it can be as an acoustic performance space.
Firstly, being smack bang in the city and having no directly linked car park (unlike the Festival Theatre), trying to find a car park is an absolute bitch on any night of the week. Even on a Wednesday I had to park about 15 minutes away. Of course there are a couple of parking complex’s reasonable close by if you are willing to fork out the money but I am a uni student so of course there was no hope for that.
Once inside, the interior of the place is stunning. There is a huge sweeping staircase which goes up two or three levels and is the access way to the seats in the dress circle above. The seating itself is well organised and you can have a good view from anywhere that you are sitting. The stage area is a lot smaller compared to other theatres in Adelaide but I guess that kind of adds to its older charm and under the enormous and ornate chandeliers, you don’t really notice.
The crowd is mainly oldies (depending on what you go to see of course) but as an event space it gets a thumbs up!