At a night designed to formally launch the plans, Ms Dusseldorp and Mr Winspear spoke about the importance of the arts to regional areas. Ms Dusseldorp said that art was not just for cities.

“Culture is not place specific, culture is about a whole country and a whole nation,” she said.

Mr Winspear said you couldn’t overstate how important the arts could be to the regions.

“I know, because I grew up in Hobart, and have seen how the arts have transformed that town,” he said.

“It’s not often acknowledged, but the arts is now a bigger economic sector in Australia than sport, or agriculture. The arts are not elite, they sell more tickets than all the sporting fixtures in the country combined. You just have to build it,” Mr Winspear said.

The event was hosted by Frankie J Holden and the invited audience heard about further fundraising. He has thrown his full support behind the project and said it “just clicked into place when he saw the plans”. 

Professional grant writers will be used to apply for both state and federal funding for the new theatre with between $6-7 million being sought for the work. Initial work by the committee has ensured the hall is ready for the next and much larger stage of building work to take place.

The committee hope to raise $200,000 from the community in support of the funding effort and on Saturday evening treasurer Bernard Shea was presented with a cheque for $40,000 from Spectrum Theatre Group, who are regular users of the hall for their shows.

Representatives from some of the many groups that use the hall also heard that there will be a series of touring shows coming to the hall to help the fundraising efforts, the first of which will be Frankie J Holden and Michelle Pettigrove’s show ‘How sweet it is’ with Geoff and David Willis, on April 29 and 30.

See photos from the night