The City of Sydney has today announced a number of exciting initiatives aimed at improving the night ecomony, nightlife, local music scenes, and basically moving towards fixing our city of culture.

It’s all part of Sydney’s Live Music and Performance Action Plan, which was implemented in 2014.

READ: Sydney’s lockout laws are three years old, but where have they got us?

The new initiatives include:

  • New grant funding dedicated to new and existing live music and performance venues, live music programming, night time venue safety initiatives and other projects that help diversify Sydney’s late night economy.

  • Streamlining the planning process for venues that want to introduce or increase their live music or performance programming, with expert planners on hand to assist in the application and assessment process.

  • A discussion paper on entertainment noise that will invite industry and community feedback on proposed changes to planning controls to help plan for and protect live music venues, and how the City manages noise complaints.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the new programs will be introduced in order to bolster “new and existing live music and performance venues, live music programming, night time venue safety initiatives and other projects that help diversify Sydney’s late night economy.

“Sydney has a strong community of artists, performers and musicians, with fantastic venues run by extremely dedicated people, and a wonderful and increasingly vocal community of fans,” she continued.

“Live music is hugely important to Sydney, with recent research commissioned by the City identifying its value to the community at $353 million during last year alone.

“We’re using every lever at our disposal to encourage more live music and performance, reduce unnecessary red tape and advocate for the regulatory reform needed for a strong and successful live music and performance sector.

“We’re committed to supporting this important sector by working directly with venues and industry organisations, and delivering on the commitments we made in our Live Music and Performance Action Plan.”

Another step in the right direction. Maybe things are looking up…

Find out more about the City of Sydney’s action plan at its website.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine