A leaked masterplan for the $7 billion Arden Central redevelopment in North Melbourne shows Live Nation will build and operate a 5,000 seat, purpose-built music venue beside Arden Station, hosting up to 100 concerts and events a year. Construction is pencilled in for 2028 with completion in 2030, two years before the first homes on the site are due.
The plan was published early on a staging website belonging to the winning bidder, Hamton-Hostplus, and reported by the Herald Sun and The Age on Thursday 8 October. Minister for Building and Precincts Nick Staikos responded that any plans being discussed publicly are proposals only and do not represent a final decision. An official announcement is expected this month.
The 13.5 hectare site is government-owned, about 1.5 km from the CBD, and is slated for 5,400 homes and around 10,000 residents, with at least 10 per cent affordable housing. The Age reported in July that the 2025 tender documents set aside about two hectares for an entertainment venue before the public knew about it.
ALMBC’s view is that Melbourne needs more music venues, not fewer, and a 5,000 capacity venue next to a new train station is a sensible piece of infrastructure. The questions are about who gets public land to build it, and on what terms.
“Nobody in our sector is going to argue against a new venue beside a train station. We are going to argue about who gets it and what strings are attached,” said ALMBC Executive General Manager Ant McKenna.
Live Nation already operates Festival Hall in West Melbourne (around 5,400 capacity) and the Palais Theatre in St Kilda (around 2,900), along with the 5,000 capacity Palace Foreshore summer site. Arden would give one company three of the inner city’s largest standing room venues under 6,000 seats, alongside its promotion business and its ticketing companies Ticketmaster and Moshtix.
That model is now under serious scrutiny overseas. In April this year a US jury found unanimously that Ticketmaster had unlawfully monopolised primary ticketing at major concert venues, that Live Nation had monopolised the large amphitheatre market, and that it had unlawfully tied access to its amphitheatres to its promotion services. The jury found fans were overcharged US$1.72 a ticket. Live Nation is challenging the verdict, and a remedies trial where 33 US states will push for Live Nation and Ticketmaster to be separated is not expected before 2027. In May, a UK parliamentary committee called for a full competition investigation into the live music market, citing evidence that Live Nation controlled 58 per cent of UK primary tickets in 2025.
Closer to home, the House of Representatives inquiry report Am I Ever Gonna See You Live Again? recorded stakeholder evidence that Live Nation, TEG and AEG/Frontier together control roughly 85 to 90 per cent of the Australian live music market, raised vertical integration as a concern, and recommended the ACCC monitor the industry for anti-competitive conduct.
“A US jury has just found this company unlawfully monopolised ticketing and amphitheatres. The states are still in court trying to break it up. That is the company Victoria is handing public land to,” McKenna said.
Live Nation’s own annual report lists 460 venues in operation worldwide at the end of 2025, and its July results flagged more than 25 new venues above 3,000 capacity opening by the end of 2027. The Arden proposal fits that pattern: a company-owned room in the 3,000 to 5,000 range, in a city where it already promotes and tickets most of the big shows. Independent venue bodies in the US and UK have pushed back hard on similar developments, with the National Independent Venue Association urging governments to withhold incentives from Live Nation venues and the UK’s Music Venue Trust naming Live Nation as the major operator not delivering on the voluntary £1 grassroots ticket levy.
If the Victorian Government proceeds, ALMBC is asking for conditions to be written into the deal:
- open access for all promoters, with no exclusive ticketing arrangement;
- a guaranteed share of dates for independent promoters and Victorian artists;
- a contribution from every ticket sold back into grassroots music venues; and
- full transparency on any public subsidy, land value or rent attached to the site.
“Melbourne’s music venues run on 2 to 3 per cent margins when they make money at all. They are not asking for free land. They are asking not to be undercut by a government deal with the biggest player in the world,” McKenna said. “If this venue is going ahead, every ticket sold in it should put something back into the grassroots venues that develop the artists who will headline it.”
Victorian Labor’s September election pledges on live music precincts, noise complaint protections and a new Live Gigs Fund were welcomed by the sector. The Arden deal will be judged against them. A government that can find two hectares of inner city land and a 2030 delivery date for Live Nation can find a fraction of that support for the venues that feed it.
ALMBC will be seeking a briefing from Development Victoria on the terms of the proposal once the announcement is made.
