Co-owners Sam Hay and Tyson McMillan first came across the US and Canadian sport overseas. Both having a background in hospitality and keen to take on a new venture, they were tossing a few axes in the backyard one day when the idea occurred to them to bring axe throwing to Brisbane, after other venues had popped up around Australia. A year ago, their first venue was opened at the Gold Coast and "exploded", according to Mr Hay. Giving people a place to socialise with groups of friends, make new friends, and take part in something unique and fun, the concept was quickly embraced by Gold Coast residents, tourists and visitors from across the state. With plenty of people driving from Brisbane to participate, the idea soon came to expand northward.

After an extensive hunt for the ideal location, Mr Hay said they found the perfect place in West End. "We started looking for a spot months ago, we took a long time – we wanted to be in West End because of the really cool cultural aspects of the area and the location and we finally found an awesome space," he said. The technique is quick to master and easy to improve, Mr Hay said The concept has its links not just to the pub-friendly sport of darts, but also hosts a competitive league with competitors honing their techniques. And despite the often aggressive theme of axes and cleavers, that focus on technique and having fun means it's less about feeling angry, and more about calming down.

"It's more therapeutic in the fact that rather than getting anger and aggression out, you're focused on what you're doing," Mr Hay said. "All you're thinking about is your axe and the target and everything else that might be on your mind starts to just to not really matter as much any more." Bringing the sport to Australia required extensive work to convince insurance companies that the sport was internationally successful, including making sure the Lumber Punk venues exceeded all insurance and safety regulations – which, Mr Hay said, they did. So who can throw axes? "Anyone can do it, it’s a very quick learning curve," Mr Hay said.

"We've had an 87-year-old lady throwing axes on the Gold Coast, in one of our leagues we’ve got a gentleman in a wheelchair. "As long as you’re over 18 and you're sober, you can throw an axe, we can show you how to do it and you can do it easily and you'll get good at it. "We start with little throwing tomahawks which are about 10 or 11 inches high, and then we have hatches, we have frontier tomahawks, we have big ones, small ones, spiky ones, ones that look like cleavers, all of that jazz." With the new sport's increasing popularity on the Gold Coast, Mr Hay and Mr McMillan hoped their West End venture would become another friendly, safe place to hang out with friends and enjoy good company.

"Axe throwing is the vehicle, it's more about getting people out, getting them together, socialising, networking, making friends. "Not having alcohol kind of helps with that, because there's so much you can do that involves alcohol in both the Gold Coast and Brisbane, but you're kind of limited when it comes to activities and past-times where alcohol isn't part of that. "It's kind of cool to have an alternate to that, so you've got something different can do." Lumber Punks Brisbane is opening for its first day on Saturday at 2/427 Montague Rd.