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The Crystal Ballroom (also known as The Ballroom and Seaview Ballroom) was a music venue located within the Seaview Hotel on Fitzroy Street in the inner Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. The venue was run by a succession of Melbourne alternative music promoters from 1978 to 1987, starting with Dolores San Miguel (who also ran gigs at other prominent Melbourne music venues, including the Esplanade Hotel), and later by Laurie Richards, founder of the Tiger Lounge in Richmond and the Jump Club in Fitzroy. The Crystal Ballroom was given its name because of the venue's ornate ballroom and chandeliers. It has often been referred to as the centerpiece of Melbourne's post-punk movement.
Dolores San Miguel took charge of the venue from its previous occupants in August 1978. The first band to play there was JAB, who relocated from Adelaide. On 2 September 1978, San Miguel took control of the Ballroom and opened it up as the "Wintergarden Room". The first gig in the Seaview Ballroom was headlined by The Boys Next Door, featuring Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard. The Ballroom ran every Saturday night until it was taken over by Laurie Richards in February 1979. Richards renamed the venue the "Crystal Ballroom" and operated it under that name until 10 January 1981, although San Miguel returned in April 1980 to run weeknight gigs in what she christened the "Paradise Lounge" on the ground floor. Melbourne's Little Band Scene flourished here in 1980. After Laurie left, San Miguel co-ran the Crystal Ballroom with Nigel Rennard until a falling out in September 1981, whereby San Miguel vacated her position. Rennard renamed the venue the "Seaview Ballroom" and ran it until the end of 1983. Dolores returned as the venue's owner in 1984. She ran it until 1986 before the hotel was closed for business in 1987.
The Crystal Ballroom was a staging ground for major Melbourne bands such as The Birthday Party and Hunters and Collectors, as well as visiting Sydney bands INXS, The Laughing Clowns, and Brisbane's The Go-Betweens. International bands who played there include Simple Minds, The Cure, Magazine, The Members, XTC, The Residents, Snakefinger, PIL, The Gun Club, Iggy Pop, The Fall and Dead Kennedys.
The venue is best known as the "Crystal Ballroom" because this was its name during the height of Melbourne's post-punk movement. The venue, and its association with a host of local and international music acts, has been documented in a wide range of media. Noted Australian culture critic Clinton Walker’s first book Inner City Sound (1981) was almost as if centred in the Ballroom, and in his fourth book Stranded: The Secret History of Australian Independent Music 1977-1991 (1996), he revisits the time and place in more detail. In 2011, San Miguel published a book titled The Ballroom: The Melbourne Punk & Post Punk Scene. The Crystal Ballroom and its role in Melbourne music is reflected upon by various interview guests on the Dogs In Space bonus DVD documentary We're Living on Dog Food, directed Richard Lowenstein.