Keep Sydney Open: Memorial plaques with Flume, Peking Duk commemorate city's nightlife

Updated

More than a dozen memorial plaques have sprung up around closed-down music venues in Sydney over the weekend as part of the Keep Sydney Open campaign.

The plaques display the names of artists who started their careers at the venues, and protest against the New South Wales Government's lockout laws introduced in 2014 in response to a spate of fatal one-punch assaults.

They affected venues in Kings Cross, Darling Harbour, The Rocks and parts of the CBD, and mean no shots after 10:00pm, no new customers after 1:30am and no alcohol served after 3:00am.

Keep Sydney Open highlights "the unfair imposition these tough new laws have had on those who work and play in the this city," the campaign's site says.

The Australian artists who feature in the plaques include Alison Wonderland, Bag Raiders, Flume, Peking Duk and Nina Las Vegas — with many expressing their support for the Keep Sydney Open movement on Instagram.

Australian electronic band Bag Raiders posted on Instagram, saying it was "sad to see the life and soul sucked out" of their home town due to "very poorly thought out lawmaking".

"Clubs like this one are the cultural incubators that made it possible for ourselves and many other bands, DJs and producers to get a start in our careers," the post said.

"It's heartbreaking to see so many businesses close and we feel sorry for the next generation that they won't have the same opportunities we did coming up."

Australian DJ Alison Wonderland had her plaque erected where Q Bar was before it closed down in 2015 — two decades after it first opened its doors.

She also took to Instagram to address the laws.

"When I started, my Friday night residency at Q Bar helped to shape me as an artist, learn my craft, discover so much music, be part of a community and live," the post said.

"I learnt by surrounding myself in the culture, trying new things, failing, succeeding, having the space to experiment.

"The nightlife in Sydney is what made me fall in love with what I do.

"So many of my craziest, fondest, stupidest and most inspiring memories come from this time in my life ... don't know where I would be if I wasn't given this opportunity. Lockouts aren't the answer."

One of the creators of the project, Jonno Seidler, told Pedestrian the purpose of the plaques was to shift the focus of the lockout law conversation.

"What frustrated me about the conversation around the lockouts was that they all seemed to be focused around people drinking, getting into fights and being out late at night," he said.

"I'm almost 30, I'm not out 'til 3:00am anymore, but I love live music — it's the reason I live, the reason I've met most of my friends, and I felt like nobody was having a conversation about what was happening to the venues."

Topics: laws, arts-and-entertainment, music, alcohol, drug-use, state-parliament, law-crime-and-justice, sydney-2000, nsw

First posted