{"id":669338,"date":"2026-05-14T00:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T00:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669338\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T00:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T00:51:09","slug":"public-memorial-for-702-abc-sydney-presenter-james-valentine-to-be-held-at-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669338\/","title":{"rendered":"Public memorial for 702 ABC Sydney presenter James Valentine to be held at Town Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A public memorial for beloved ABC presenter and musician James Valentine will be held on May 29 at Sydney Town Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Valentine died aged 64 last month using voluntary assisted dying, two years after being diagnosed with cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The celebration of life is open to the public with registrations to be released in a series of waves.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The first release of tickets will happen on Friday, May 15 at 12:30pm and will be available on the <a class=\"Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/sydney\/a-celebration-of-life-james-valentine-am\/106657776\" data-component=\"Link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">702 ABC Sydney website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Further releases of tickets will happen next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The memorial will also be broadcast on 702 ABC Sydney radio and through the <a class=\"Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/listen\/listenapp\" data-component=\"Link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC listen app<\/a> from 12:30pm to 2pm on the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">702 ABC Sydney station manager Nick Lowther said Valentine wanted a radio show as part of his memorial.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His great love of the radio medium was what this was all about,&#8221;  Mr Lowther said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;He just wants to be able to have a chat through the people he&#8217;s organised to speak at his memorial.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-04-23\/james-valentine-made-radio-look-easy-brave-generous\/106598372\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">In dying, James Valentine taught us how to live<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">James helped us make sense of life and gave us permission to laugh at the absurdity of it all \u2014 and ourselves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Former 702 ABC Sydney Drive presenter Richard Glover, who shared a long on-air friendship with Valentine, will host the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Valentine had a 30-year career presenting radio at the ABC, most notably for the Afternoons show on 702 ABC Sydney where he developed his distinct approach to talkback radio.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">He officially retired from presenting in February this year, finishing up with a <a class=\"Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/listen\/programs\/sydney-afternoons\/jv-retirement-special\/106315138\" data-component=\"Link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">special broadcast<\/a> that revisited the highlights of his tenure behind the microphone.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A public memorial for beloved ABC presenter and musician James Valentine will be held on May 29 at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,323105,323103,323102,36083,73536,66282,240275,323104,85152],"class_list":["post-669338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-james-valentine-2bl","tag-james-valentine-702-abc-sydney","tag-james-valentine-memorial","tag-jimmy-barnes","tag-kate-ceberano","tag-paul-kelly","tag-sydney-town-hall","tag-town-hall-memorial-james-valentine","tag-voluntary-assisted-dying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}