It seems every week another iconic Adelaide watering hole or music venue closes — The German Club, The Edinburgh Castle, The Colonel Light and Wright Street hotels, to name a few.

Most recently, the Archer Hotel in North Adelaide was placed into administration and the Adelaide UniBar announced it was moving downstairs.

The CBD once had 128 pubs, today that number stands at about 50 and is falling.

The sector blamed competition with new small bars, social media and an influx of baby boomers and international students who live in the city but don't go to pubs.

One publican who has had to sell up and did not want to be named said small pubs "had been under siege for a while", particularly those outside or on the fringes of popular nightspots.

He said fewer people were visiting pubs in general and that drink driving laws prompted people to choose more accessible areas.

In addition, rising utility costs — electricity in particular — were putting continuous pressure on pubs.

The Edinburgh Castle Hotel is Adelaide's oldest continuously licenced pub, pictured circa 1926. ( Supplied: Library of SA (B 3733) )

Shrinking CBD population hurts businesses

Historian Patricia Sumerling has spent nearly two decades working on a book about Adelaide pubs and said the critical factor is population.

She said between 1880 and 1920, the CBD had 128 pubs for a population that peaked at 45,000 — the 2016 census recorded just 15,115 CBD residents.

Ms Sumerling said far more people now only come into the city during the day and leave in the early evening.

Meanwhile residential accommodation was filling with people who generally did not visit pubs, such as international students and retirees.

"What's made it worse is the introduction of licences for small bars," she said.

"The worse things for pubs, of course, is to try and be like a restaurant in response.

"You're creating competition for restaurants."

Crucial younger demographic dwindling

Australian Hotels Association chief executive Ian Horne pointed to a Deloitte report in 2017 that found the state's economy and population had been growing slower than the rest of the country for more than 30 years.

"They also reported a devastating statistic that found we had fewer 15 to 34-year-olds now than we did in the mid-1980s," Mr Horne said.

"They are a crucial demographic. They go out and get jobs and spend all their money, when they're younger, on entertainment.

"They're the backbone of the cafe and pub/bar set, and we just don't have that momentum that comes with a growing population that you see in pretty much every other major capital city."

Mr Horne said larger capital cities benefitted from more foot traffic through the CBD, while Adelaide's foot traffic at night was concentrated in just a few areas.

He said even CBD venues like the German Club and the Edinburgh Castle were too far from the hotspots.

"The pie simply isn't getting any bigger and you can't grow your business because there are not enough new people coming into SA," he said.

Mr Horne agreed with Ms Summerling that those filling newly built city apartments were largely not helping the situation because they're generally in the wrong demographic.

"Student accommodation, which is predominantly international students, they're not necessarily locked into the Australian live music scene, although some are," he said.

"And no disrespect to baby boomers because I'm one of them, but what sustains these venues is predominantly young people who go out once or twice a week, not once a month on a birthday."

German Club to move after 105 years

The German Club held its last Oktoberfest earlier this month after deciding to close its doors on Flinders Street and move out of the city.

President Iris Strobl said the club was selling the building and relocating to the suburbs after facing financial difficulties.

The German Club had been located at 223 Flinders Street since 1913. ( ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton )

She said the club needed to find ways to retain new, younger members because those who have been with the club for more than 50 years were ageing.

"There was a plan in place to turn this into a live music venue, which is great when the Adelaide Fringe is on, but it's quite tiresome during the rest of the year," she said.

Former club president and historian Ian Hamstorf said the club's location had once been on the fringes of Adelaide and had convenient parking and readily accessible public transport — that is no longer the case.

"Now, rates and taxes are enormous in that area and parking is astronomical," he said.

"And the competition in the last 10 years around the German Club has been phenomenal, so it's almost outgrown its location."

South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas said the government was "always concerned to hear about any local business finding it difficult to make a go of things".

"The recent state budget delivered more than $613 million in tax cuts to help lower costs, create jobs and drive investment, including the abolition of payroll tax for all small business from January 1 next year, saving businesses up to $44,550 a year," he said.

"The Government will continue to work with the AHA on ways to reduce regulation and red tape, which either add to the costs of doing business or reduce the profitability of running hotels."

The Grosvenor Hotel, under construction in 1919, tended to provide accommodation for those visiting from the country. ( Supplied: State Library of SA (B 16114) )

Construction blamed for Edinburgh Castle closure

The historic Edinburgh Castle Hotel is being steadily dwarfed by multi-story student accommodation. ( ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton )

The former publican of Adelaide's longest continuously licensed venue, The Edinburgh Castle, recently shut up shop because of a 30 per cent downturn in revenue he blamed on issues created by the construction of an adjacent student high-rise tower.

Tony Bond said he lost his loading zones along Gray Street to the construction site, making it difficult to receive beer kegs and for musicians to bring in equipment at the popular venue.

It came on top of emerging competition with small bars and rising utility costs, including his electricity bill increasing by nearly 40 per cent over five years.

He said the construction site created issues including "raw sewage running down the street" and left his once-popular beer garden covered in dust.

"The whole ambience went when the construction started next door," Mr Bond said.

"We were getting covered in dust and we'd clean the beer garden three times a day."

Functions cancelled before Christmas

He said his problems were compounded when Adelaide City Council ordered him to close his balcony because flakes of rust were becoming dislodged from its underside.

"It was more of a concern rather than anything dangerous, but we had to cancel a lot of functions and things like that, just before Christmas," Mr Bond said.

"I alerted my landlord on several occasions about it and he just took three months to fix it.

"It was kind of like you get punched with the left, you get punched with the right, and that was how it all panned out.

An Adelaide City Council spokesperson said the development of the 17-storey student high-rise behind the pub was approved by the state government's Development Assessment Commission.

The state government did not respond to the ABC questions about the builder's adherence to its environmental management plan and the dust issues.

The council spokesperson said the pub's balcony had to be closed until repairs were undertaken to ensure it was safe to occupy.

"In regards to raw sewage concerns, the council has referred this to SA Water for further investigation," he said.

Younger generation watching bands online, not on stage

The spokesperson added that the council was aware that some hotels were facing challenges.

"[The council] has a significant cultural and sponsorship program to assist where we can in areas such as public events that generate activity and income," he said.

"For the past four years, the council has frozen the rate in the dollar for its residential and commercial ratepayers and waived outdoor dining fees for many hospitality businesses."

Mr Bond said pubs and live music venues were also facing changing trends, pointing out that many among younger generations were choosing the internet over a live experience.

"One guy put on Facebook that he'd seen this particular band we had playing a lot, and I asked him about it.

"He said, 'I just watch it on Facebook or YouTube', and that was almost his way of seeing a band live.

"He really felt he'd experienced this band.

"I know how they can access things these days and it's very digital."

Development versus live music

Mr Bond said another factor in his decision to leave was the knowledge that some 770 students would soon be living behind a venue that has bands playing until 1:30am on weekends.

Most publicans were acutely aware of the devastation wrought upon Adelaide's live music pubs during the early 2000s when there was a concerted push for new city apartments and subsequent complaints about live music.

The Ed Castle's last band listing still remains intact outside as a memento to former glory. ( ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton )

Several pubs were forced to close down their music programs, or spend money on sound proofing, spelling the end of a dynamic music scene in the city's East End.

"And then baby boomers want to come into the city and buy their apartments, which is great," Mr Horne added.

"But of course, by nature baby boomers, they love the vibrancy of the city as long as the vibrancy doesn't make any noise after 9:30pm."

After protests and a march in 2001, laws were changed to protect existing venues, but Mr Horne said it largely did not mean anything.

"Everyone patted themselves on the back and celebrated that we'd saved the live music industry, but nothing's happened," he said.

"If you get a residential complaint, the process and the councils always back the residents.

"They're politicians and I guess they do the sums."