Industry History: Sandgate, Queensland, Australia
Culture | June 1, 2026By Isabelle Drake
As time marches on, films, animation, and cinema have become an integral aspect of many diverse cultures, assisting in passing the time as a leisure activity, initiating and steering social interaction, a form of vicarious self-expression, and presenting a medium that aids in meticulous communication and heightening our immersive experiences when engaging with our institutional tradition of storytelling.
In contemporary Sandgate, there are no cinemas in the immediate and neighbouring suburbs of Shorncliffe, Brighton, Bracken Ridge, and Deagon. For those looking for the latest mainstream blockbusters, one must travel to either Chermside’s Events cinema, Strathpine’s BCC cinema, or Redcliffe’s Hoyts cinema. And for individuals and moments when you would prefer to engage with independent, arthouse, foreign, and international films/film festivals in Brisbane, there are the Angelika Cinemas, Australian Cinémathèque, Dendy Cinemas, Five Star Cinemas, Palace Barracks, and Palace James Street Cinemas.
Nevertheless, Sandgate was home to the grassroots initiative: Sandgate Cinema Club. They aimed to resurrect Sandgate’s theatre roots and support the Sandgate community. They achieved this by selling affordable annual and casual club memberships, conducting community-oriented screenings, and organising the Sandgate Film Gala whilst selling one-off tickets at all events to the attending locals at the door. All profits went back into the Sandgate community, and the events created a safe, social, and inclusive environment for all.
Unfortunately, in September 2021, the club, screenings, and festival were temporarily cancelled due to COVID-19. Then, whilst acknowledging the passing of prominent actor, director, and activist Sidney Poitier and actor/director Peter Bogdanovich at the start of 2022, the Sandgate Cinema Club cancelled all screenings, meetings, and events for the “foreseeable future” and has not gained back its footing since. However, Sandgate’s cinema and film history had not always been so disheartening. In fact, picturehouses and theatres are ingrained in the suburbs’ history and heritage, settling among the town’s main attractions during the late 1800s and most of the 1900s.
Motion pictures were originally viewed in Sandgate’s Old Town Hall, Decker Hall, between 1882 and 1910. Located on Kate Street, present-day Pier Avenue, the Hancock family ran and, presumably, owned the town hall along with the adjacent house. Being able to seat 350 individuals with a permanent residential population of 1750 by 1891, the Hancock’s would have been run off their feet on weekends and holidays, having the capacity to accommodate a fraction less than one-fifth of Sandgate’s population. Not to mention the hordes of visitors who would take the train from Brisbane to Sandgate in hopes of getting away from their bustling city lives and the tourists passing their days at Queensland’s original seaside holiday destination. Post screening of the “Wests’ Picture Show” on 24 May 1910, when the projection equipment was being collected for storage, a Hurricane Lamp, used as a dampened light in picturehouses and/or as the projector’s source of light, slipped out of the unfortunate soul’s grip and burned the wooden town hall and house to their stumps.
The Hancock’s misfortunes, however, created a gap in Sandgate’s market that led to a popular substitute, the Open-Air Theatres, which started operating the same year. The theatres were set up at three separate locations: Moora Park, the Pier, and the far end of Flinders Parade. In an attempt to, presumably, learn from and prevent a repetition of the previous event, the projects were run on electricity that a generator converted from Sandgate’s gas stockpile. But this move could have very well ended in sparks because at the Pier site, spectators would sometimes have to keep their feet lifted above the sand to avoid wetting them when the tide came in. From there, set up in 1910 to when the Open-Air Theatres closed in 1922, Nev Amis was the projectionist, and Frank Pearson played the supplementary piano parts of every silent film screened.
The closing of the seemingly charming outdoor theatres was initiated by the opening of Bon Accord. The theatre was purpose-built by Mr Ossie Brooks, who was employed by the theatre’s first owner, Mr George Hancock, and opened in 1922. “Bon Accord” is French, translating to “Good Will”, an apt name for the Hancock’s new theatre on Rainbow Street. Upon opening, the building had a dirt floor, and the piano was taken over by Mrs Hamer, and on the rare evening, a three-piece orchestra would play instead. According to the Sandgate and District Historical Society and Museum, ‘It was closed for renovations in 1932-33 to install a stage, wooden floor, new seats, plaster ceiling, and to line the wall of the theatre and the foyer,’ before changing hands to the Hamer family in 1949, and it closed during 1960.
However, Bon Accord was not the only theatre that Mr Hancock owned, as he continued to commission Mr Ossie Brooks to build The Beach Theatre. The same year the Bon Accord was sold to Hammers in 1949, they also rented the Beach Theatre before buying it in 1952. And with ‘canvas front stalls’, it was the place to be for the teenagers of the 60s. The Beach Theatre had a rather good lot until the tides turned on 13 April 1978, when it followed in the footsteps of the Old Town Hall.
The last theatre of Mr Hancock’s cinema Empire and of the buildings he assigned Mr Ossie Brooks to build was The Felix, opening in 1928 on Pier Avenue, the same site as Decker Hall.
This particular theatre was the first to be renovated in 1930; the original building had a wooden floor, an open front, and a round, portable ticket office, which signalled opening when it migrated to the footpath in the mornings. Post-renovations, the building was not only changed but had been renamed “The Strand”. Much like the Bon Accord and The Beach Theatre, it was purchased by the Hamer family in 1949.
Thus, completing the transition to the Hamer’s cinema dominion of Sandgate until they sold The Strand in 1959. The new owners moved the building to Bellare Avenue in Northgate and converted the theatre into Maunsell’s Furniture Factory.
The Hamers had moved from Gympie, where their original picturehouse resided. In 1934, they had the Mayfair built in Sandgate by Mr A. A. Carrick on the corner of Second Avenue and Brighton Road, to compete with the Hancock’s empire. However, it would appear this particular theatre struggled as it was closed at only 11 years old in 1947 and became the Pelaco Shirt Factory. On the bright side, the factory helped to provide local jobs for members of Sandgate before being repurposed into Bayards Department store between 1962 and 1982. The demolition of the building’s shell occurred in 1985 for redevelopment.
Strictly speaking, the last theatre in Sandgate was the Sea Breeze. It stood on the site of the current Brighton Health Campus, previously known as Eventide Home. This particular cinema’s purpose was to enrich the lives of the R.A.A.F trainees and staff from 1942. The Sea Breeze building resided within the boundaries of the Sandgate R.A.A.F. base. It continued to fuel its audiences with amusement and enjoyment until the early 1980s, when the site was deemed to be better suited for an auditorium.
However, the last cinema in the Sandgate district technically returned audiences full circle to their Open-Air theatre days. It was the Boondall Drive-in, which opened in 1956 and allowed everyone to engage with the outdoor theatre … indoors, from the comfort of their cars. The drive-in operated until 1990 and closed towards the end of a wave where many other drive-ins closed throughout Brisbane in the 80s and 90s.
This was the end of Sandgate’s film and theatre culture until the Sandgate Film Gala and Sandgate Cinema Club. It is, at least in my opinion, a sad turn of events for the overall Sandgate community, as films provide cultural depth and self-expression for all ages and allow for our human tradition of social storytelling.
More importantly, the club and community screenings were a good way for people to connect, especially those who struggle to engage socially. Whether that is because one struggles with getting to places outside of town, mental health, neurodiversity, feeling like they don’t belong anywhere, or has had financial pressure.
The film and cinema culture created by Sandgate’s Cinema Club fostered an environment for accessible for those with mental health issues and neurodiverse individuals; it supplied pre-provided conversation topics, an easy and socially acceptable way to excuse oneself (for those who need) to take regular breaks/remove themself from conversations and socialising. Lastly, it provided the whole community with a way to satisfy the basic psychological needs of socialisation, connection, and storytelling; two of which human beings cannot survive without and the last, a time enduring instinct and survival method passed from one generation to the next.
