Palace Theatre Rally Attracts 1,000 Punters

Organisers of a rally to show support for Melbourne live music venue The Palace Theatre have estimated that between 500 and 1,000 people attended the gathering on Saturday.

The Save The Palace Theatre Committee had originally set the lofty goal of 30,000 attendees – one of each of the Facebook followers – but told theMusic.com.au today that they felt it was a “good turnout'.

“Naturally, everyone would always like more numbers, but everyone there was very active,” said committee representative Tania Wilson.

The mid-sized 1,855 capacity venue's future as an entertainment venue is under threat from a development proposal to turn the site into a hotel, amongst other things. The proposal was initially deferred after being presented to the State Government and after preliminary discussions by the Melbourne City Council, but has now been re-submitted by the architect.

According to Melbourne musician and venue advocate Chris Thrum the new development has reduced the height of the building, but reduced the setback from the street.

“In a nutshell, they have lopped off 30 metres from the top of the building,” he told theMusic via email when the plan was re-submitted. “The setback from the front of the property was 8 metres, is now 5 metres. The planned building is now 47 metres above the height control limit for the precinct.”

As theMusic.com.au previously reported, an application to update the building's heritage listing to including the interior as well as the exterior is believed to be being considered by Heritage Victoria.

Thrum was one of a number of speakers at the rally, with RocKwiz host Julia Zemiro and The Greens' Federal Melbourne for Melbourne Adam Bandt also addressing the crowd.

The committee collected approximately 150 further objection letters to submit and received a “little bit of funding” by way of donations. As part of this week's debrief they will look to plan a second rally, which ideally will happen before the end of the year but may take place early 2014.