What is the largest performance venue inside the Sydney Opera House?

The Concert Hall is the largest performance venue inside the Sydney Opera House. It seats about 2,679 people, making it substantially larger than the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Drama Theatre, Playhouse and Studio.

The hall is primarily associated with orchestral and concert performances, especially those by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Its scale reflects the building’s original ambition to provide Sydney with a major venue for symphonic music, choral works and large public performances.

The Joan Sutherland Theatre, formerly called the Opera Theatre, is the main venue for opera and ballet and seats about 1,507 people. That makes it the second-largest major auditorium, but not the largest overall. The Drama Theatre seats about 544, while the Playhouse seats about 398; capacities for flexible spaces such as the Studio can vary by configuration.

The Concert Hall also contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ. With more than 10,000 pipes, it is widely described as the largest mechanical tracker-action organ in the world. The hall has undergone acoustic and renewal work, but it remains the complex’s biggest auditorium.