Sydney has a Venue Problem.

Lazy Thinking’s imminent closure on the 29^th of August represents a sad prognosis for Sydney nightlife: a terminal venue problem. Last year, the scene saw more closed doors than opened ones, from Mary’s Underground to the Midnight Special. In all my interviews with local artists over the years, they have all said they want more venue options rather than the same three. In turn, corporate monoliths like Merivale win the monopoly war by cannibalising and absorbing boutique venues that cannot feasibly afford the government’s red tape and operating fees. As closures metastasise, it’s a tough pill to swallow that avoiding venues like Vic on the Park might become impossible. … Soon, the Ivy will start holding gigs. Ivy Thursday would become somehow even more dystopian and detached. 

As closures metastasise, it’s a tough pill to swallow that avoiding venues like Vic on the Park might become impossible. … Soon, the Ivy will start holding gigs.

Word on the street is that it is our fault, Generation Z, that Sydney nightlife is dying in its hospital bed from chronic under-drinking and homebody syndrome. But who set that system up? Lock-out laws from 2014 and attention thieves from Meta and TikTok. This quasi-victim-blaming has become a bizarre argument angled at young people, expecting us to initiate change within the industry (famously difficult to do). Those in power had their prime gig time pre-Reels, so what’s the incentive? INXS are long gone, and Tame Impala is now a K-Pop star. 

Sadly, as well, the pursuit of quality and consistent art and the pursuit of profit and liquidity are famously, or infamously, incongruent. The rigidity of corporate Australia stifles what’s already tough for the arts to do: to flourish through the cracks in the profit-centric pavement. Hence why record labels have begun to only pursue pre-viral artists. You will not catch private equity firms lining up to secure local indie venues. For that to occur, the well of artistic expression and creative freedom must be poisoned for the sole goal of consistent return. In saying this, I think the pervasive power of the scene lies in its uncertainty, its underdog and dog-eared exterior. The sacrifice of financial security for community-bridging art yields a high like no other. I think of the Hacienda during Madchester and Central Saloon in Grunge’s Seattle, both financially ruinous but culturally striking. 

The sacrifice of financial security for community-bridging art yields a high like no other … I think of the Hacienda during Madchester and Central Saloon in grunge’s Seattle, both financially ruinous but culturally striking. 

With that being said, our generation does also, in fact, go out a lot less than those before us. However, that does not mean that the desire is not there. Government intervention is important, but so is cultural intervention. Nurturing a scene comes with time, and these venue closures don’t do us any favours. It is like taking away the oxygen tank just before a patient’s lungs are healed. Social media should be seen as a tool, not as a weapon, in the sheath of cultural intervention. The symbiosis of venues platforming artists and artists platforming venues through a Reel or two is the wrench in affixing a young person’s attention to the scene. Digitally painting a picture of the scene can pull people out of the bed-rot and onto the mosh pit.

The symbiosis of venues platforming artists and artists platforming venues through a Reel or two is the wrench in affixing a young person’s attention to the scene.

For us as a community, we must rally behind venues like Lazy Thinking and Mary’s Underground, no matter the expiry date. Our generation craves connection. We need to reframe the digital space of Reels and TikTok as a portal to the refreshingly real feelings found at gigs across Sydney. The most human you will ever be is at a gig, knocking knees and nodding your head with strangers. 

Without venues like Mary’s Underground and Lazy Thinking, experiences of unfettered joy and human-to-human connection would never have manifested. They would have laid low in the back of our brains, like a sad stowaway filled with dreams. These closures are a frightful reminder for you and your friends to go to gigs and absorb the community live music breeds.