Cafe and bar at 42 London Street in Lyttelton, run by Lois Ogilvie and Pete Llewellyn Evans from 1988 until the 2011 earthquakes. A creative hub for Lyttelton’s arts community — painter Bill Hammond designed the iconic 1994 LAVA poster for the venue.
George FM is a New Zealand dance and electronic music radio station founded in 1998 by brothers Thane and Richard Kirby from a spare bedroom in Grey Lynn, Auckland. Starting as a volunteer-run low-power FM station, it went city-wide in 2001 through a partnership with the Manukau Urban Māori Authority, became commercial in 2003, and was acquired by MediaWorks in 2009. Now broadcasting nationally — including on 95.3FM in Christchurch — George FM is New Zealand’s leading dance radio brand, drawing around 202,000 weekly listeners with a presenter-led format that gives DJs full control over their music selection.
The Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand — MAINZ — operated in Christchurch from 2002, training audio engineers, live sound technicians and electronic music producers at its High Street campus. Alumni include Joel Little, The Naked and Famous and Gin Wigmore. Its programmes transferred to Ara Institute of Canterbury on 1 January 2026.
C93FM was a Christchurch independent FM radio station that broadcast on 92.9MHz from 1986 to 2001. Founded as a classic rock station, it passed through several formats — 93FM Gold, Classic Hits, Adult Contemporary — before closing in April 2001. Its most significant contribution to New Zealand music was the 1988 Rockquest, a local band competition conceived by station employee Ron Kjestrup that grew, under new organizers, into the national Smokefreerockquest.
The Foundry is Canterbury University’s live music venue, operating at 90 Ilam Road in Ilam since the 1970s. After the 2010 earthquakes closed the original student union building, The Foundry ran from a beloved carpark temporary venue for eight years — hosting acts including Savage, Hilltop Hoods, Machine Head, and Dead Kennedys — before settling into the new $27 million Haere-roa building in 2019.
The former Sydenham Fire Station at 293 Colombo Street had two lives as a music venue: Wayne Manor from 1979, hosting Christchurch’s early punk and post-punk scene in a BYO cavernous station space, and The Firehouse Nightclub from 1985 — a more polished club that survived a bomb attack and a gunman before ironically being destroyed by fire around 1990.
The building at 124 Worcester Street was designed by Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort and opened in 1875 as Trinity Congregational Church, whose congregation included suffragist Kate Sheppard. Converted to the State Trinity Centre in 1975 — a theatre, bar and restaurant — it hosted The Axemen’s landmark recording session for Three Virgins before earthquake damage in 2011 closed it for over a decade. It reopened in 2023 as The Church Brew Pub, retaining Mountfort’s famous double barrel vault ceiling.
The Grosvenor Hotel opened in 1877 at the corner of Madras Street and Moorhouse Avenue, built to serve the railway workers and travelling public of Christchurch’s southern transport corridor. It operated for over a century before closing in 2001. After surviving the 2010–11 earthquakes, the building reopened in 2012 as The Monday Room — a cocktail bar and events space that hosted DJ nights and occasional live music. In 2018 The Monday Room relocated to High Street; the Moorhouse Avenue building is now NV Interactive.
The Isaac Theatre Royal at 145 Gloucester Street is the only surviving operational Edwardian theatre in New Zealand. Opened in February 1908 to the designs of architects Alfred and Sidney Luttrell, it has hosted everyone from Anna Pavlova and Louis Armstrong to the Rolling Stones, Split Enz, Crowded House, and Lorde. Heavily damaged in the 2011 earthquake, it reopened in November 2014 after a $40 million restoration and holds Heritage New Zealand Category I status.
The Lyttelton Coffee Company has occupied the heritage-listed J.D. Bundy building at 29 London Street since 2007, operating as a café, specialty coffee roastery, and intimate live music venue. Owner Stephen Mateer oversaw a painstaking 2.5-year restoration of the building after it was badly damaged in the February 2011 Canterbury earthquake.
Basement bar in the former British Hotel at the corner of Oxford Street and Norwich Quay in Lyttelton, with a history stretching back to 1849. Known through several names including El Santo, it reopened as the Hellfire Club in 2017 after earthquake repairs and later became The Commoners.
Double Happy was an upscale bar and club at 182 Cashel Street in Christchurch, operating from December 2006 until the 2011 earthquakes. With a capacity of 420, it was one of the city’s larger live music venues, booking local and international drum and bass, hip hop and electronic acts.
His Lordship’s Hotel stood at 105 Lichfield Street from 1876 until an arson fire destroyed it in October 2000. Over more than a century it carried several names and many owners before becoming a live music venue through the 1990s, when Christchurch’s SOL Square precinct was at its most active.
Churchill’s Tavern is a Sydenham live music pub operating on the site of the 1882 Club Hotel. One of the few live music rooms to survive the Canterbury earthquake sequence, it hosts international touring acts in rock, punk, and metal alongside local shows.
Multi-purpose hall at 277 Kilmore Street that served Christchurch folk, rock and community events from 1968 until the 2011 earthquakes. Home to the Christchurch Folk Music Club for many years, with a capacity of around 120.