Dallas Clark and Stephen Evans artwork on the walls of the Botany View Hotel, Newtown, Credit:Fiona Morris Lock-out laws, property development and gentrification have taken their toll on a once proud music tradition, where Sydneysiders once swilled their way between gigs on a Sunday afternoon in Newtown, Balmain and Kings Cross, now a festival was needed to celebrate pubs being pubs. The Rule brothers know it first hand – the endless prosecution of noise complaints meant their beloved Annandale Hotel moved from the home of the heaving moshpit to the home of the sip and swill, where you're more likely to have Yum Cha than than thrash around on the dance floor. They don't want to see venues in Newtown suffer the same fate. "Areas like this can handle these types of crowds," said Matt. "The key to this area is to keep it diverse. Otherwise it will be very easy for the government and police to come in and say, 'You're a drinking hot spot, let's close you down'."

The owners of Young Henry's and Mary's in Newtown joined forces at the King Street Crawl While live music is the bedrock of the festival, the Rule brothers wanted to bring all of Newtown's eccentricities to the table to create an atmosphere that was about more than just partying, just like the festival with which it has no formal relationship, South by Southwest in the US. Down south at Parliament on King, knitting mid-20's types took love letter writing classes and listened to spoken word poetry, while around the corner Mary's burger chefs flipped patties and Bloodwood pumped out polenta chips paired with Young Henry's long-necks. Weaving through the suburb's laneways street-artists collaborated on murals as critics sat spouting artistic wisdom from milk crates. For Newtown band Sticky Fingers, who have just returned from a tour of the US, the festival summed up all the work the Rule brothers had put in to fostering the inner-west's live music scene.

The sight of 25 venues throwing open their doors for musicians of every ilk gave the band's bassist, Pat Cornwall, hope that younger bands might follow in their footsteps. "Sydney's always prided itself on being an export for live rock music but it won't continue to be if regulations keep strangling us and turning out the lights," he said. Businesses complaints were heard at a NSW legislative inquiry into the lockout laws in November, with the threat to live music forming a central part of the committee's deliberations. The committee recommended that the laws be reviewed at the "earliest possible stage," because of the impact on businesses, patrons and stakeholders. A submission from the City of Sydney said the laws reduce income to musicians, among Australia's lowest-paid workers, and have an impact on the diversity of options available to visitors and residents in Sydney at night.

While lockout laws have pushed crowds out of the city and into Newtown, where many publicans are currently trialling a 3am curfew, no evidence of violence was to be seen. By Sunday evening no incidents had been recorded by NSW Police. Update: An earlier version of this story was updated to make clear there is no formal relationship between the King St Crawl and South by Southwest who requested that any reference to their name be removed.