Peter Whelan
April 25, 2023
The notoriously sticky carpets of the Tote have played host to generations of Melbourne’s music fans over the decades, as well as plethora of Australian rock royalty from local legends like Paul Kelly, You Am I, and the Hoodoo Gurus to international stars including the White Stripes and Mudhoney.
The venue was recently listed for sale , now finding itself in the midst of escalating controversy following an unexpected change in sale conditions after a successful crowdfunding campaign that sought to secure its future as a live music venue.
Eager to prevent the sale of the venue to property developers, Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar owners Shane Hilton and Leanne Chance had launched a crowdfunding campaign with the goal of buying the Tote and placing it in a public trust in order to give it “to the bands of Melbourne forever.”
Hilton and Chance pledged $3 million of their own money and sought to raise an additional $3 million from the public campaign on crowdfunding platform Pozible.
“Let’s not beat around the bush…”, the campaign description began,
“THE TOTE IS GOING TO BE TURNED INTO APARTMENTS (or worse one of those fucking awful redeveloped tissue box pubs ran to make as much money as possible with no dirty rock & roll in sight…”
“In other words, the Tote is dead and some asshole developer is going to get it,” it continues.
“We’ve managed to hustle and can (with going into a shit load of debt to banks, family and using our own meagre [sic] savings) manage to put up half of that money.
“What we need to do is raise the other half.”
As part of the campaign, Hilton vowed to tattoo the names of all contributors on his body and the Last Chance hosted all-night live streams featuring performances from local artists as the live music community rallied to save the venue.
Among those who contributed to the crowdfunding campaign was Asia Taylor, part owner and band booker of Abbotsford live music venue Lulie Tavern, band photographer and co-host of music podcast the L Files.
I asked Asia what motivated her to contribute to the Save the Tote campaign.
“I wanted to support Shane and Leanne,” she said.
“It got to a couple $100,000 pretty quickly, and when it hit a million, I realised that it could be possible and it could be saved. I thought, ‘I need to be a part of this.’ There’s some amazing memories there, and if I had the money, I’d save it as well.”
On March 6, the Save the Tote campaign reached its three million dollar goal, a record amount for the Pozible platform.
However, a matter of hours later, a post appeared on the Tote’s Instagram account from Tote owners Sam Crupi and Jon Perring.
“The Tote would like to thank everyone that pledged to the Last Chance Pozible campaign to try and buy the Tote. It’s a stunning result for the community to reach the $3m target,” the post began, before shifting in tone.
“The current asking price is $6.65m and is based on the land value,” the post began, explaining that the owners had arrived at the figure with help from a “respected and qualified valuer” to allow for “the mortgage, all liabilities and the current owners to be paid out fairly.”
“The price is possibly even conservative by some measures,” Perring and Crupi wrote, suggesting that “governments and private philanthropy would need to come on board” to address the “shortfall between community pledges.”
Commenters were swift to express their disdain in the comments section.
That night at the Tote, punk band Uncle Geezer left the stage after playing only one song in protest over Crupi and Perring’s decision.
“If you don’t know what’s going on, look at the Tote page,” said a band member. “Fuck this place, it deserves to get sold to Hillsong. You guys want the whole set? Come to Last Chance tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of the set, that will be six hundred thousand dollars.”
Uncle Geezer invited the audience to their free Last Chance Rock & Roll bar show the next day, where every ticket had been paid for by an unnamed ‘prominent member of Melbourne’s music industry.’
Negotiations between the Last Chance owners and the Tote owners are ongoing, but Hilton remains optimistic.
“The journey is still continuing,” he told Broadsheet .
“The campaign ending didn’t mean it would automatically sell, but we are confident we’ll get the purchase.”
Pete Whelan 