Location: Oberon
Offers: A range of live entertainment and events in iconic Art Deco venue
We spoke to: Co-owner and operator, Lucy East.
For decades, the Malachi Gilmore Hall did not serve the community of Oberon in its original intended purpose. Commissioned by the Catholic diocese and completed in 1937, the stunning Art Deco hall hosted film screenings, theatre performances, dinners and dances for years before its closing in the late 1970s. It went on the market, but was passed in at auction in 2014. No one was sure what to do with the town’s most iconic building. Restoration work was required to make the place suitable for any commercial use, work that would be an expensive and time-consuming labour of love. Luckily for the Malachi, Lucy and Johnny East were willing and able to take on the challenge, buying the building in 2017.
As an artist and musician herself, Lucy saw the building’s local importance as a cultural venue that had to be brought back to life. Seven years since getting started, restoration of the hall as a live performance and multi-functional venue is nearly complete, and Lucy and Johnny’s work has been recognised by the National Trust NSW Heritage Awards.
Now all kinds of shows and events have already taken place amid the ongoing refurbishments.
“We’ve taken the town along with us”, Lucy says, about the level of community involvement in this process. Lucy and Johnny live in Sydney, but have been embraced by the locals for their efforts. “I’m not a resident of Oberon, but I own the most beloved building in town,” she says. It’s a custodianship they take seriously.
Now, Lucy can focus all her efforts on making the most of the space.
“We want fresh art coming in, not necessarily the sort of things people expect to see in a small town.”
Already, there’s been a great response to what’s been offered, with the third edition of the Oberon Chamber Music Festival coming in November 2025, and the inaugural Oberon Shakespeare Festival being another recent success. These multi-day weekend festivals serve the township economically as well as culturally, as theatregoers fill up the town’s motels and buy dinners. Last year, more than 60% of the Chamber Music Festival’s attendees were visitors.
Oberon is a small town, but with a few choice elements for visitors (museums, outdoor experiences, Mayfield Gardens and nearby Jenolan Caves) the Oberon Business and Tourism Association (OBTA) strongly encourages cooperation across businesses to make the most of visitation. Lucy also has high praise for the Visitors Information Centre, who have been totally supportive of the Malachi’s events, functioning as a satellite box office for ticket sales. Going forward, Lucy is hoping to contribute to the development of an open calendar system for event planning within the town, so that various venues and businesses can collaborate and avoid date clashes.
Lucy and Johnny are just a two-hander at this stage, and promoting the Malachi’s events is almost a full-time job on its own. Lucy sends out a regular e-newsletter to the hall’s mailing list and contributes promotional editorial to the Village Voice newspaper. Every show and event is posted on Humanitix, Facebook and Instagram, Arts OutWest, Visit Oberon and Bathurst Connect, and every month Lucy appears on ABC Central West’s Talk of the Town to highlight what’s happening at the Malachi and any other cultural events in Oberon. While these local and regional networks are invaluable, Lucy feels that the money they’ve spent to boost posts on Facebook hasn’t delivered much in the way of increased ticket sales.
The restoration of the venue, and its continuing operation as a community-oriented space has been costly, and would not have been possible without funding grants. Funding from the federal government’s Live Music Australia has supported live performance showcasing new original music and professional development for the venue and its volunteers. Home-grown festivals like the Chamber Music Festival have received funds from Oberon Council and OBTA which have supported world-class musicians performing concerts to Oberon school students and senior citizens for no cost and livestreaming the performances on the Australian Digital Concert Hall. These have helped bring the heritage-listed building up to code for an assembly hall, including accessibility and soundproofing, and have made it possible for one day of the Chamber Music Festival to be completely free, so that any local or visitor can attend. Lucy is grateful for this support, and emphasises the importance of seeking out and applying for whatever kind of funding you might be eligible for; it’s extra work that can really pay off.
There’s plenty of excitement now about the Malachi’s potential, both from Lucy and members of the Oberon community. The Malachi is proving to be a vital part of the arts and cultural “piece of the Oberon puzzle”.
Three tips we got from Lucy:
- Don’t be afraid of challenge when you know the work is worth doing.
- Build for the community first, create something meaningful, and the tourists will come.
- Make the effort to apply for grants and any external funding.
More info:
Upcoming events:
https://events.humanitix.com/oberon-laughs-out-west
More stories at Malachi Gilmore Hall, Oberon:
IMAGES CREDITS: Main Johhny East; kids Jennifer Precians.
