Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt hopes the lease situation surrounding the Fly By Night will be a cloud with a silver lining. Among the dozen protestors were Eskimo Joe guitarist Stu MacLeod and End of Fashion co-founder Rodney Aravena (formerly of The Sleepy Jackson). MacLeod said the venue "helped enormously" during the band's early days. "We were able to use that venue to rehearse before we even owned pretty much any musical equipment. They let us use that venue for about three years for free, as it was available for anyone else who was a member of the Fly By Night Club," he said. "It will be very difficult for [Sunset Events] to administrate the not for profit side of things without impacting their bottom line." Fly By Night chairman Steve Wells said the decision is "ripping the heart out" of community music.

"This is heritage management by chequebook and to the highest bidder. There’s been no due process here, we’ve been a successful occupant of the facility for the past 28 years," he said. "It's an absolute shock that a commercial entity has taken over from a non profit organisation in a building which is designed for the people of Western Australia and supposedly managed by the National Trust for the people of Western Australia." National Trust chairman John Cowdell said more than $750,000 had been spent in the past decade on repairs and conservation works at the Drill Hall site. “Sunset Events has offered significant capital expenditure on heritage conservation and refurbishment at the commencement of the new lease,” he said. “The trust also looked to a model that would involve a far greater utilisation of all areas of the building, offering a greater range of benefits to arts related groups, as well as an imaginative use of bar and coffee shop facilities which would be open to the public.”

Sunset Events claimed the board of the Fly By Night declined to work with it on a joint submission - and said it would work with the club to discuss its “continued use of the venue for its members as well as offering the space for the clubs fundraising activities". The Fly By Night Musicians’ Club has been granted a six-month extension of its lease so that it can secure an alternative venue. It’s understood that the City of Fremantle is working with the club to find a suitable location. Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt blogged about the situation on Tuesday morning, writing that it could lead to some positive outcomes. "This decision by the Trust Board will be no doubt a controversial decision and really hard on the good people at the Fly, who I suspect will be gutted," Mr Pettitt wrote. "But once the dust settles it could be a cloud with silver lining.