Melbourne To Get Australian Music HoF

After a 15-year battle by Frontier Touring chief Michael Gudinski, broadcaster/record producer Ian “Molly” Meldrum and singer Kylie Minogue, Melbourne will be the home of the Australian Music Hall Of Fame.

AP Photo – Kylie Minogue
Oakland Theater, Oakland, California.

The three will serve as its patrons, along with indigenous singer-songwriter Archie Roach, and donate items from their personal collections for the free-to-the-public exhibition.

The HoF will be part of the new Australian Music Vault housed inside the Victorian Arts Centre, and is to open this November.

The Centre has hosted similar exhibitions featuring Midnight Oil and Nick Cave, while the current Minogue display “Kylie On Stage” drew 200,000 people in two months.

“It will be an opportunity for all generations and all types of people including the next generation to be educated on music and the experience of it,” Gudinski said. “If people are going to walk through it and if they feel inspired in any way then we’ve achieved our goal.”

The Victorian state government has provided funding of A$10 million ($7.3 million).

A number of Australian cities including Sydney have previously pitched to host the HoF but Gudinski says Melbourne was the only real choice as “it’s the music capital of Australia.”

According to peak music association Music Victoria, Melbourne’s hosting of 62,000 shows a year makes it one of the world’s music capitals. Among the international names that Melbourne has launched are Minogue, Nick Cave, Men At Work, The Seekers, and Frontier Touring.