Unintended consequences: Australia's live music industry's vulnerability to government regulation

Updated

Unintended consequences

Australia's live music industry is the envy of many countries, but remains poorly insulated to the consequences of regulatory change.

People mythologise Australia's live music scene; the 'sticky carpet' venues of years gone by, where now-storied bands cut their teeth, are glowingly referred to with a sense of nostalgia that suggests such spaces are all but gone.

But they're not places of the past. They're here now, fewer in number — significantly so in some cities, but still very much alive.

They're venues where urgent, vital noise is made, places where ideas around identity — be it national, cultural, sexual or gendered — are nudged around, explored and articulated.

And with a flick of a pen, they can be blotted out of existence.

Governments may not intend to target live music venues when they introduce quick-fire policy measures designed to target issues like alcohol-fuelled violence.

Horrible reports and accompanying footage of intoxicated, typically masculine aggression emerge, and the time for hard-line action presents itself.

But live music venues remain exposed at those moments to the unintended consequences of regulatory change.

Save for a few common attributes — the service of alcohol and late night operating hours — they have little in common with big nightclubs.

Yet for decades Australian music venues have been subject to the same legal changes.

Locked out

This week actor Sam Neill accused the lockout laws of taking "the guts out of the nightlife of Sydney".

"I'm grumpy because Sydney used to be such a vibrant and exciting place in the late '70s and early '80s. Sydney without nightlife is kind of a pointless place."

The lockout laws, which ban entry into bars, pubs and clubs in Sydney's central entertainment districts after 1:30am and force all venues to close at 3:00am, were introduced in February 2014.

Since then, live music revenue in those areas has dropped a staggering 40 per cent.

"Music venues had their trade cut back from their hours of operation, so instead of being able to put on two shows a night they're only able to put on one show a night," says the Live Music Office's policy director, John Wardle.

"It has heavily impacted on how they are presenting their music. As to how sustainable they would be into the future under the current conditions, we would have really serious concerns about that."

In any other industry, such figures might be cause for state-wide outcry.

But the confusing, disjointed nature of the music industry means it was glossed over quickly and bundled in to the broader narrative about Sydney's floundering nightlife.

Two days after those figures were released, around 8,000 protesters rallied in the city against the lockout laws under the banner of #KeepSydneyOpen.

For all the goodwill it engendered, it was a vague, amorphous message, easily co-opted by various industries and agendas.

In contrast, when 20,000 people marched on the streets of Melbourne to protest the closure of the Tote Hotel and the oppressive liquor licensing laws being enforced by the then Brumby government, it was under the clearly defined rallying cry of Save Live Australian Music (SLAM).

Helen Marcou, the owner of Bakehouse Studios and one of the central figures behind that rally, says nightclubs and bars approached SLAM, eager to join their protest campaign.

She wished them the best of luck in their lobbying efforts, but told them SLAM was about live music.

The mantra of "Keep Sydney Open" also has the effect of suggesting that Sydney is now closed — a narrative that has carried across state borders and beyond, doing little to motivate tourism.

"The trouble with things like a lockout law is that it's a one-size-fits-all policy," says Associate Professor Shane Homan, an expert in music policy from Monash University.

"It tells a large three-storey nightclub to close at 1:00am, the same way it tells a small bar with a capacity of 60 people to close at 1:00am. To me that doesn't make sense in terms of having a nuanced policy for city nightlife."

There is, however, cause for music industry optimism in the form of the forthcoming independent review of the Sydney lockout laws, conducted by former High Court justice Ian Callinan.

A number of those involved behind the scenes in the review have suggested to me the live music industry has been a particular focus of the review.

There is confidence the Callinan review will recommend scaling back the lockout laws in some form, or providing exemptions for live music venues.

New South Wales Deputy Premier Tony Grant says he will support changes to the lockout laws recommended by Justice Callinan, which is due at the end of the month.

'I Tote and I Vote'

The current live music ecology in Melbourne is, by and large, extremely healthy.

Both state and local government have twigged that the industry is worth supporting and committing to. The industry has a voice at the state legislative table, and its cultural and economic contribution is understood and generally celebrated.

Only recently, the situation was far closer to that of Sydney.

In 2009, against a backdrop of late night assaults and drunken behaviour, Premier John Brumby issued a new state alcohol action plan. It involved a crackdown on licensed venues deemed "high-risk" under decades-old classification. Live music venues fell under that proxy.

Hear more about the state of the live music industry by listening to Jeremy Story Carter's full investigation or subscribing to The Law Report podcast on iTunes, ABC Radio or your favourite podcasting app.

"If you had a ukulele player in a bar attracting 20 or 30 people on a Saturday afternoon, that meant having the cost of two security guards from half an hour before to the end [and] installing CCTV," says Ms Marcou.

Music venues were hit immediately. Bands lost gigs and live music was, in some cases, perversely replaced by alcohol-badged nights.

The catalyst for action came when, in January 2010, the beloved Tote Hotel shut its doors.

"We couldn't stand for it," says Ms Marcou.

It was a seen as an attack not only on venues, but people and communities.

"You were being portrayed as something that you are not," says musician Erica Dunn, who got her first gigs playing at the venue.

"If you are a part of this community, which for me has been so lifesaving and so loving and so understanding and so nurturing, to have somebody paint that in the fine print and in government policy that it's somehow connected to being violent and being antisocial, it just made people insane with anger."

Accompanied by Paul Kelly and a sea of high-profile figures, 20,000 people marched Melbourne's CBD to the foot of State Parliament. "I Tote and I Vote" was one of the memorable signs of the day.

The survival of live music had become political, and the loss of venues was replaced by the potential loss of votes.

With new lobby groups like Save Live Australian Music (SLAM), run by people such as Helen Marcou, the industry set about achieving meaningful legislative change.

They presented a set of clear policy objectives to the state government. First was the need to break the proxy that equated live music with violence. They succeeded.

The liquor licensing authority agreed to modify its policy approach for live music venues.

Elsewhere, an independent report commissioned by the state government emphasised that "careful consideration should be given to any government interventions that might directly or indirectly restrict or indeed promote the provision of live music".

For a once-scattered industry with occasionally conflicting interests, this was significant progress.

The industry had delineated itself from other entertainment venues and established a credible, unified voice.

Valuing the grit

"Does the Tote have cultural heritage? Absolutely," says Dunn, who plays in Palm Springs and Harmony, and broadcasts on community radio.

"I know it seems crazy, because you might walk in there on a Saturday night and it's like a goddamn zoo, but it's also a way of life. It's a place that is distinctly separate to your normal 9-to-5 life, and it is in some ways a reaction to that.

"It's about ideas and it's about community. The places that can inspire that, man, you couldn't create it if you tried."

Associate Professor Homan agrees.

"The gritty rock 'n' roll venue, the down and out venue can often be just as culturally valuable," he says.

"Cities like Nashville, Austin, London, are now going to great strides to include and preserve the grittiness of their more famous venues. Every city needs to have its sub-cultural mess, which in itself becomes a tourist attraction."

The situation around the country is far from doom and gloom. In Adelaide, the live music industry has recently collaborated with state government to develop a plan for an exciting, creative future.

But critics argue NSW has a long way to go to move beyond the current dichotomy where lavish state-funded festivals and performances are supported at the Opera House, but independent shows on the city's periphery run to tight curfew under fear of persecution.

"Governments can't have it both ways," says Associate Professor Homan.

"They can't simultaneously put out policy documents saying 'aren't we a funky, vibrant cultural city', and at the same time not adequately support in a legislative fashion the venues that are actually the cornerstone of that vibrancy."

Topics: music, indie, music-industry, hospitality, industry, business-economics-and-finance, government-and-politics, arts-and-entertainment, collingwood-3066, melbourne-3000, vic, sydney-2000, nsw, australia

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