In the latest move from NSW live venues in their fight against lockout laws, more than twenty bars and venues across the state will shut off their music at midnight on Saturday in a coordinated protest against the state’s ongoing hostility towards the entertainment industry.
With just 100 days to go until the NSW election, and more than four years after the lockout laws were introduced, business owners say they’re fed up with seeing fellow entertainment venues go out of business, and sick of seeing festivals and other music events targeted by police and unfair policies.
Oxford Art Factory owner Mark Gerber said of the protest:
Music venues are vital for any creative city and we think music policy should be in people’s minds come election time.
Tyson Koh of anti-lockout law political group Keep Sydney Open echoed Gerber’s sentiments.
There has been a net loss of 175 venues since the lockout laws were introduced, and the recent scapegoating of music festivals has shown the NSW Government is not going to stop until they destroy all the fun in NSW.
The venues that will go silent at midnight on Saturday include the Marlborough Hotel in Newtown, the Kings Cross Hotel, Oxford Art Factory in Darlinghurst, the Family Hotel in Newcastle, and Freda’s in Chippendale. They’re hoping that the silence will ring in NSW voters’ ears all the way until the next election – hopefully loud enough to vote in some change that will save the state’s struggling live entertainment industry.
CORRECTION: an earlier version of this article stated that Labour had promised to repeal the lockout laws if elected next March. They haven’t. The article has been amended to reflect that.
