Sydney Stadium was built in 1908 on the site of a former Chinese market garden that was leased by boxing promoter Hugh Donald Macintosh as a venue for sporting events.

[1] Macintosh originally built a temporary open-air stadium to promote a World heavyweight boxing championship title fight between Canadian world heavyweight champion Tommy Burns and Australian champion Bill "Boshter" Squires on 24 August 1908, which Burns won by a knockout in the 13th Round.

[1] It also hosted the biggest sporting event in Australia's history up till then, where over 20,000 crammed in the stadium on 26 December 1908 to see Tommy Burns fight the African-American Jack Johnson.

From 1954 onwards and through the 1960s, the stadium was frequently used to host concerts by visiting overseas performers – notably the groundbreaking "The Big Show" package tours promoted by expatriate American entrepreneur Lee Gordon – as it was the only large-capacity indoor venue in Sydney at that time.

It colloquially became known by performers as "The Old Tin Shed" and was so big that American star Bob Hope purportedly said it was "like Texas with a roof on it".