University of Sydney institution Manning Bar, remembered by graduates for its lunchtime theatre sports and evening gigs, will no longer trade to students during daytime hours when the university semester resumes this month.

The bar on the university's Camperdown campus was a training ground for stand-up comedians including Tom Gleeson, Andrew O'Keefe, Rob Carlton and Charles Firth in the 1990s, and a hub where aspiring university politicians would strategise.

Students at a US election party at Manning Bar in 2016. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

It also launched Australian bands like The Jezabels and Cloud Control through its annual band competition, and reached international ears when Leonardo DiCaprio enjoyed a beer on the Manning balcony while in Sydney filming The Great Gatsby in 2011.

But student attendance has steadily dwindled for years, and the university's student union board last year reported that Manning and Hermann's Bar, located on the Darlington side of campus, ran at a combined loss of $245,000 in 2018.