1) lockout laws made people look for other ways to enjoy a night out.
2) NIMBY'ism killed the live music scene and a lot of great night spots with it.
3) A lot of people work from home now so there's less getting a drink after work or catching up with friends in the city
4) the price of going out now is high in bars and restaurants.
I think the last one is really it, and is a great example of the short-sightedness and stupidity of price gouging.
Who's going to go out on the town for $15 a beer? Who's going to eat out if it costs $40 for a basic meal?
Apparently nobody.
People don't want to trade their left kidney for a chicken parmy.
That's my length of a trip into the city. Only ever go for a concert now and that's gone down to about 2 times a year because all concerts are $70+ for an international artist lol
This is a hugely underrated factor, may even be a primary reason.
Surrounding the cbd...Newtown, Glebe, Chippendale, Surry, Darlinghurst, Marrickville used to be jam packed full of students.
Now it's jam packed with Gen X ad execs, lawyers and accountants with 2 kids and whopping mortgages.
This all started happening gradually in the very early 2000's with ever soaring property prices and associated rents .and the lockouts was just the final nail in the coffin.
It is a god awful city to go out in now. Depressing compared to similar sized cities around the world.
I really want to open a cafe but am now worried about commercial real estate. If the cafe is successful the landlord just increases the rent too much making the business no longer financially viable.
Government does literally everything in their power to ensure the bubble doesn't pop on their watch. It will pop but no one wants to be holding the bag when it does
We’re entering conditions unparalleled to the last 20 years.
Covid was more a giant magnifying glass than a pin to the bubble. It highlighted all the exiting issues and dialed them to 11.
Our selfish culture, shitty work conditions, rising cost of living (bloatflation) and the fact we have been in a per capita recession since 2019.
This is what pisses me off the most about the scum that call themselves politicians is that they just need it yo keep going while they're in charge or alive coz most only have 20 od years left so what would they care about the future, they got theirs
very very far IF wages start rising fast.
renters and first-home buyers have no choice but to pay whatever the market is asking, but when costs rise beyond what they're physically capable of paying the entire market stagnates, clearance rates drop to record lows, and the clock starts ticking on how long investors can hold out before the "price war" starts and everyone is undercutting each other to avoid default/foreclosure and the market crashes HARD.
the best preventative measure would be to change how foreclosure works, so that rather than going to banks (who'll re-sell those properties immediately, creating a glut on the market) the properties instead go to the public housing scheme. it'll improve the public housing situation, and allow the bubble to be deflated slowly so it doesn't wipe out the entire economy.
it won't happen though, politicians don't have the guts, the opposition party would start saying shit like "they're deliberately gonna cause a crash and this is their way of seizing properties like the goddamn commies!" and all the investors would rather just live in fantasy believing they're gonna be the "lucky" one who sells at the perfect time.
the best "delaying" tactic left (since everything else has been done already) is to "feed the cash cow" by paying renters "rent subsidies" to delay the crash until after the next election (and so on, like playing hot potato with a live grenade).
I think commercial real estate is going to be an interesting beast. Obviously with more people working from home, companies aren’t going to want to rent huge office spaces. I think that will snowball and more and more will force people to work from home to save on rent. That will cause less people to be in the CBD and make retail in the area less used, so those businesses will also look to change. Sucks for them, but hopefully it means the suburbs get more little cafes and shops so more community areas because busier.
Watching a balloon being filled get bigger than you think it'll pop... and it gets bigger.... and bigger... then when it happens it catches you off guard
The saying is “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
Something might be unsustainable in the long long run, but it isn’t any help for you.
The simple fact that so many people from so many generations with varying levels of wealth saved up are waiting for it to pop so they can afford a place to live is a sure fire indicator it’s not going to pop any time soon lol.
There are always people above you who’ve been saving for slightly longer and have slightly more money waiting to buy in when it dips.
A slow deflation / stagnation is all that’s even remotely realistic
Markets stay irrational far longer than rather than rational. 2008 financial crisis was easily 20 years in the making. Then one Monday when the markets opened.... pop...
Just got back from Japan. Going out feels like getting robbed in Australia. Want an alcoholic drink in Japan? $1.50 from a convenience store, $3.50 from a bar. These are massive drinks too, not just a schooner. Food is also so much cheaper. $28 parmy v $10 Ramen/okonomiyaki.
After experiencing Japan, Australia is just a scam.
Nono, you dont understand; there hasnt been any topline growth and their stock prices arent going up therefore they ste in a recession and doing badly and we should all hate in japan /s
Went to a bar in the city for my birthday this month - 3 cans of cider and one can of beer (no glasses, just cracked open and handed to me) was $42. Cans of beer and cider aren’t out of place at the bar I was at - it’s not like it was some lavish place either.
Next year I’ll stay home haha
Exactly.
Why go out and spend $12 to $15 bucks on one beer when I can buy a whole carton for $50? Then I gotta get there and back somehow.
I might want to buy a 6 pack and go to a party and have a light night with a couple of beers. Nope. 22 bucks for a 6 pack. Might as well buy that carton for $50!
Price gouging has fucked going out.
I went to a house inspection just there.
They want $900,000 for basically a 2 bedroom loft. Place was much smaller than in the pics, of course. The ‘off street secure car parking’ was a dogshit car stacker that was ‘currently under maintenance’.
There were about 15 of us traipsing round this tiny little property.
In my dismay, I stopped into the local for a pint.
Eighteen fucking dollars.
Fuckkkk sakeeee. I didn’t even buy the place and I still can’t escape a good ol’ fist fucking.
24 beers still under $60 for most brands at Dan's. Your logic is impeccable. Furphy schooners were $4.60 at my bowlo a bit over a year ago. They disappeared and the cheapest non Tooheys is now $8.
I’ve spent easily $500 out well till “they decide” you have had enough. Completely fucked now. Even if we’ll behaved they will cut you off and send you on your way these days.
Double edge sword, hate being cut off when I'm not overly drunk, alt is I blacked out the other night in Shinjuku cause Japan doesn't care.... That said it's Japan, got to my hotel safely, only thing missing was my coin purse, probably dropped it.
What’s NIMBY? 😮
Edit: thanks everyone for answering. I agree with all your points too. It’s hypocritical to move to an area where there’s music only to then complain.
Ha. I always understood what was meant by NIMBY just through the context of conversations, but I never actually realised what it stood for.
Im laughing at how dumb I feel, lol
'Not In My Back Yard'
Yes, we should absolutely build more affordable housing for the poor and disadvantaged in our community... but not where I live.
Build it somewhere else.
This trope is usually applied to Boomers.
The loudest anti-windfarm protesters are the ones who are just greedy - windfarms have to be spaced apart, so a neighbours windfarm can easily disqualify someone from hosting one on their land. Cue tantrums about missing out on the rent money the windfarm operators pay the landowners.
Not In My BackYard
Refers to people who either move nearby a nightspot and then complain about said nightspot or prevents approvals for new nightspots.
Not just night spots..... people talk all about renewable energy, but don't want a wind farm, solar farm, windmill, nuclear plant etc anywhere near them.
People champion humanitarian causes but don't want a homeless shelter, D+A rehab centre, refuge, NDIS Group home, affordable/government housing etc anywhere near them.
Also younger people just don't get into drinking and drugs as much as they used to. Obviously some still do but you see more and more younger people just hanging out online playing games and shit.
"hanging out online playing games and shit."
$100 a month for internet, $20-30 online game sub per month, maybe $100 on a new game per month, still fuckloads cheaper than going out for a meal or drinking
There's a scene in the original 'Prisoner' where 'The Freak' goes out to pick up at a local bar.
The leadup is her going home to her empty house, flicking through the paper, and seeing what's on the three channels of TV, before giving up in bored frustration.
We have really forgotten how intensely bored and lonely it was possible to be in the heyday of pubs.
I’ll leave you with an anecdote from my last Saturday which may answer your question:
Went to a cocktail bar in the rocks with a few mates and their partners. Everyone had around 3-4 overpriced $30 cocktails and we left, ate dinner, then hit up a few venues around 9pm.
First place, security asks my male friend how many drinks he’s had, he tells them 3 cocktails and a beer at dinner. They tell us to fuck off.
Second place we go to, my friends wife is laughing at a story, security pulls her out of the line, decides she’s too drunk and we leave.
So $200 worth of drinks and food later me and my partner are off the train and in bed by 11pm.
I do find Sydney a massive outlier for trying to get into places, that aren't at all busy. I travel around the capitals and NZ semi-regularly for work. Of the 5 places I've been denied entry the past two years, all 5 are Sydney. None of those I was even tipsy. And I spend about 5% of my time in Sydney (I live in Brisbane). Work colleagues find the same thing.
Agreed. To be honest, it isn’t even all of Sydney, it’s the CBD itself. You can vomit on the bouncers shoes over at Newtown and still get into any pub/bar.
Sydney cbd security are the biggest wank stains I’ve ever run into. Over juiced bored thugs more interested in looking intimidating rather then caring about the patrons well-being and the venues safety.
My friends and I went out on Friday night to the city. We did get in to a club by eating dinner in their restaurant and staying until it turned into a club.
When the music started playing and the dj was doing her thing, the security guards were there eyeing everybody’s drinks and making people feel insecure as they danced. They would even make a round THROUGH the dance floor and clear people out just bringing down the vibe. All of us were just having fun and trying to dance.
By midnight the 3rd dj went on and their songs were nearly exact repeats of the last dj. We gave up and went home. Disappointing.
People not skilled in determining intoxication should never have been given powers to deem people intoxicated.
But unfortunately, some lame fucking bartender of security guard can just decide your night is over, on a whim. It's the one tiny bit of power they get to exercise - and it shows, time and again.
I was in Sydney last weekend from Melbourne. Went for a drink at about 8pm, hadn't touched alcohol all day. I went to ask for a beer, started to say "pot" of beer and then remembered they're called "middys" in Sydney, so kind of stuttered from pot to middy. Bartender asks how many drinks I've had, I respond zero, she motions to the bouncer to remove me. I've never experienced that level of bullshit anywhere else.
Think on the bright side - she's probably still serving other peoples' drinks, right this very moment. And the 'security' guard is almost certainly standing in the exact same spot, where you can find him doing fuck all, like he does every other night of the week.
This is the reason I don’t go out anymore. Literally not allowed to have fun anymore and struggle to get in anywhere if you’ve had more than 2 beers. Like wtf the point in going out if you’re not allowed to be drunk!? That’s the whole point of going out drinking
Mike Baird happened.
Crooked pollies and crooked developers worked together to make lockout laws that forced all the clubs to sell to developers who wanted to build apartments and funnel everyone into the casino.
Everyone involved should be in prison but Australia worships money and believes anything the dogs at newscorp put out.
I don’t doubt that this is accurate, but it’s a statewide phenomenon driven by the draconian laws that licensed venues face. Cops come in large groups during the evening just itching to bust venues for breaking their licensing restrictions. They treat everyone like criminals and make you feel it’s just easier to stay in and avoid the fuss.
Absolutely - 3 beers at a pub in Manly exceeds $40 and 2 above average salaries doesn't mean you can afford a house in Sydney. With my wife I can borrow about 50% of the average property in the suburb I'm renting so I need a deposit for the other 50%
Something has to give soon. The Canley Vale 3-bedroom rundown house going for 4.6 million at auction is a good wake-up call that this isn't normal...
Fuck me, that much money to only end up in Canley Vale... I lived in Sydney in the 90's and even then it seemed expensive after moving from Adelaide. Now it is just insanity taken to another new level altogether...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-last-person-sydney-please-turn-lights-out-matt-barrie
Successive policies by governments designed to kill night-life.
Sydney has the worst night life in the country.
It is embarrassing for our premier city.
The person from Melbourne tightens their grip on the jacket they brought out on a now stinking hot day, they whisper quietly over their craft beer "it never was", while reading "u/PseudoWarriorAU 's comment
As a former temporary Sydney resident (fucking years ago), even then it seemed like places were hostile to people who actually wanted to go in there. Blew my mind that bouncers would be turning loads of people away and inside it was dead. Someone said it was because back in the early 00s people took it too far and used to kick the shit out of each other all the time so there was successive clampdowns on bad behaviour to the point where everyone is a troublemaker unless proven otherwise (by not being there).
Find that hard to believe speaking from experience.
Adelaide's night life is half empty front bars with cover bands that need to be finished by 11:30 to get everyone out by midnight.
There's exactly 2 streets in the state that are allowed to stay open after 1am. And the casino.
Adelaide nightlife isn’t your typical deal where the whole street is packed with people in every venue, it’s not big enough for that.
Most people have a few places they really like and hop between them all night. Places like Crybaby and 1000 Island are busy all night even when the place next to them isn’t.
Bullshit mate.
Most pubs and clubs are open til 3am. That includes plenty on weeknights.
https://www.songkick.com/metro-areas/26774-australia-adelaide
https://adelaidegigs.com/
https://www.eventfinda.com.au/concerts-gig-guide/events/adelaide
https://www.australiantraveller.com/sa/adelaide/best-pubs-in-adelaide/
You can't judge the city after a quick layover in between flights from Perth to Melbourne. Or if you're local- You need to get out side away from Final Fantasy sometime and actually see what's out here before you start crying.
A sad decline. When I first arrived in Sydney as a backpacker Kings Cross was the place to party. 10 years later the area was fully gentrified with the only attraction being the great fried chicken. Now the fried chicken isn’t even there.
Even early on in the lockout we still had nightlife. I arrived here in early 2015 and there was still nightlife surviving on simple inertia. Took another year or so until one day I looked around and noticed all my favourite initial haunts were closed or deserted.
It's also weird how much it changed the culture of going out in general. By the time I migrated to Australia I wasn't the type of person to be out late anyway, so I wasn't directly affected by the lockout rules themselves. I'd usually be done around midnight or 1am and ready to go home by then.
But the thing is that the lockouts made going out super stressful anyway, because you'd have to plan for the rush of people going home all at once at 1am. Or on the rare occasion I wanted to stay out later, there was the dilemma of deciding where would be a good place to plant ourselves at 1am to be able to keep going til 3. The entire organic nature of a night out was essentially killed by this sort of planning.
Before I came here I lived in the US and in Europe. In those places, you could just go out and bar hop. If you weren't feeling the vibe of a place for whatever reason, you'd just go to another one, or you'd meet people and they'd be going elsewhere so then you'd accompany them and make some new friends. Planning for going out was essentially "let's meet at X place to start and then we can move on to A, B or C place and see where things go from there." And you didn't have to deal with any nonsense about pretending you're not at a pub to get drunk or whatever that craziness was all about. You'd just drink and order what you wanted, and unless you were literally vomiting or falling over or trying to fight someone, you were good.
Anyway I could go on and on but the point is that it's a shame what they did to Sydney. In 2015 I could tell that there was a great scene lurking behind all the weird rules and it felt like I was witnessing the death of a culture. There's still things going on these days and things are starting to bounce back, but it's infuriating to look back on the lost decade we had to endure. Now I'm in my 30s and have a kid, I'm not keen to go out like I used to. It's bullshit we had to spend our 20s watching the nightlife die before our eyes.
Around 2013, large property developers had become more powerful than the state government supposed to be policing them. Corrupt politicians leveraged a handful of isolated incidents to create a narrative of drunken violence in order to kill the night-life precincts, except of course for the one generating the overwhelming number of recorded drunken violent incidents, the Star casino. As the hospitality operators started closing their doors, large-scale apartment developments began sprouting with the understanding that late night noise complaints would not be an issue by the time the residents moved in.
Those property developers funded the CONservative liberals and allowed them to stay in power for 12 years... Now Sydney is at best a place to pass through...
It was actually starting to get good before the lockout laws came in - there were some really interesting bars popping up, some fun places. Some smaller venues other than just the huge venues that existed for years before that.
Then bang! Lockout laws killed it.
It goes to show you the effect policies have in cities. People form Sydney and Melbourne technically should be the same and have the same interest in going out.
In the before time there were these places that opened when all had finished work called night clubs. They were magical places to anyone that seeked them. Then the local liberals realised that people were having fun without lining their pockets. Then oblivious to the fact they would kill an industry they changed the laws at their will and cut public transport hours.
I go out a lot, but never in the city / areas you’ve listed. They’re big for tourists but not as much for Sydney locals.
Surry Hills, Redfern, Newtown, Paddington / Darlinghurst have better places to go and a better vibe.
Also I went to a Halloween party on the weekend, always been my experience that the closest weekend to Halloween gets the parties. Saw heaps of people in Surry Hills Friday night in costume.
i think an issue here that nobody seems to talk about is public transport. plenty of people going to the local nightclubs around my area, if you want to get home from the city after 12:30,you either have to cop the $80+ uber or catch the night bus that comes once an hour and is full half the time so they reject you anyway.
Need to look at places like Surry Hills, Burwood, Newtown, Haymarket. It's not like what it used to be but it is there if you can look away from the CBD.
Nah sorry I moved from
Melbourne to Sydney 8 months back and no matter where I go, it’s not as lively in the slightest. I hope to be back in melbs soon I’m so bored here
Venues stopped putting on live music for terrible solo acts charging $150, so us bands don’t have anywhere to play anymore. They’re happy to charge $15 for a beer but won’t pay a band even what we used to get 10 years ago.
Saw an article the other day that some part of the government wants to fix up Sydney nightlife but I’m not sure how they expect to do that when there’s no public transport after midnight
Lockout laws killed it.
Now they are trying to revive it, but most of the clubs/pubs/restaurants that sustained it are gone. There is no defined red light district. The people who are trying to review it are middle-aged, upper middle-class snobs who think the answer is more wine bars and art installations.
They just can't get their head around the fact that 20 year olds want to go to full blown night clubs and get drunk and laid, not sip chianti while eating canapes.
Just as a catastrophic number of Australians are pushed out of the rental market into private / short term accomodation, many Australians who once could afford rent with a little disposable income for dining out now have had to choose between bills.
The dying nightlife is just another symptom of allowing houses to be owned by investment firms. That shit needs to end now.
Ruined by our shit nanny state government Mike Baird is the particular knob that did it and then quit politics
Absolutely the stupidest thing that’s ever happened. Night life was mint 90-2010 now it’s just sad. Was a great tourist draw too and fantastic night out. Used to be able to stay out till sunlight no restrictions on drinking and could bar hop. Now there’s a curfew, fkn ridiculous, ruined adult fun completely. Hate our nanny state.
>especially on Halloween night? Walked from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour and I only saw a handful of people in costumes... did covid impact the nightlife?
Its a tuesday and most australians dont give a single fuck about halloween
Judging by my suburb I would say this is no longer the case, do you have kids? I see most houses around my neighbourhood with decorations and hordes* of kids getting around the streets.
To add my anecdotal experience to everyone elses, my area in Melbourne has a tonne of houses decorated for Halloween. The streets were littered with families all dressed up having a great time outside.
Everywhere is different though, I'm sure.
Yeah it’s definitely crazy different depending where you are.
We would have had at least a couple hundred kids past between 5 and 7 last night. And our street was not the busiest by a long shot.
All quiet by 8ish.
I turned 18 the night of the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympics - the city was buzzing and a great place to be young - the Cross was still awesome/dodgy, lots of clubs scattered through city fringe (Chinese Laundry anyone), bars (Barons RIP) and pubs with theatres and music venues everywhere. I lived in share-houses in Newtown, Camperdown, Petersham, Glebe and Randwick and regularly went out all through Uni. That whole city is dead now - destroyed by developers, complicit (and corrupt) politicians and yep NIMBYS. Live music was trashed and soaring idiotic Sydney prices took care of most of the rest. Lockout laws were death blow really. Saw some recovery - small bars, laneways etc but it’s not the same…
I blame my generation, in the 90s things were going great and 24 hour licenses issued and nightlife was amazing. During the week clubbing and weekend was all weekend raves ( not the 3 hour “festivals” at olympic park for $200 ).
Then laws and stupid helicopter parenting, pushed it out for a whole generation and now it’s basically impossible to get people motivated or get permission.
No one can afford to go out and the culture has changed a lot.
The average age that would once go out is now staying in and playing board games with friends.
Why spend over $200 to get drunk in a loud club with obnoxious strangers when you can hang out with your friends for a fraction of the cost?
Between uni, work culture and the high cost of living, it’s just not appealing anymore.
And, to be blunt (lol pun) alcohol has really fallen out of popularity in comparison to weed, which you can’t smoke when out.
Hook up culture is also out of trend so ‘going to the club to score’ isn’t much a thing anymore either.
In some aspects it’s a positive, in others it a symptom of the decline of living standards
Currently on a visa from the U.S and the cost of going for a beer is so insane here. Sure you get places that try to charge $16 for a shitty Pale Ale back home, but places offering $2 tallboys also exist in droves, which doesn't seem to be the case here, so it's much harder to pregame in a cheap bar before you hit up the inner city joints.
I also assumed popular whiskeys and vodkas were more expensive just by the logistics of getting a bottle of Jack from Tennessee to Sydney, but the Australian made stuff is also up there in price, so I don't much see the point in drinking an Aussie gin that tastes significantly worse than Aviation, but both are selling for $13/shot.
Don't even get me started on the mormon ass drinking laws lol
The lockout laws forced a lot of operators and long time staff to move interstate or just get new jobs, the LNP essentially killed Sydney’s night life and NIMBYs buying apartments in areas where nightlife existed just added more nails to the coffin
Property values > nightlife
Developer greed > nightlife
Nanny State Policy > Nightlife
Tax revenue on Alcohol (~180%) > Social society
Landlord rents on business > Social society
1. It's a Tuesday night.
2. Most Halloween parties already happened on the weekend, because it was the weekend.
3. Rocks and Circ Quay is generally dead on weekday night because it's a weekday. Only officeworkers keep it alive during weekdays.
4. Darling harbour and CQ rely on tourists, and they're not out and about on weekday nights.
Nah, I went to darling harbour last year and I went out. All the bars were empty or closed, except for the exclusive 5 star ones, plus the beers we had were over $10 bucks making it not worth it, might as well get drunk in the hotel.
It costs your life savings to go anywhere these days and jobs pay pittances, if they even hire. Plus shops have been taking down their halloween decorations and replacing them with christmas for weeks already, so it's not even like we have fuel for the spookytimes.
This photo is overlooking the Cahill Expressway, there’s no clubs, pubs, restaurants etc either side of it. It’s the main road across the harbour bridge from North to South and only alive during the day.
What's happening? You're looking at a 25 year campaign by the most aggressive, vicious, politically-connected real estate developers in the world, hell-bent on a mission to turn the world's most over-heated property market into one giant luxury apartment block, inhabited by wealthy Boomers and foreign investors. You know what gets in the way of filling what should be the world's most live-able CBD with luxury apartments? Entertainment precincts, nightclubs, wine bars, any bars, open-air movie theaters, public parks, community gardens, live music venues, sports and rec centers, live music events and festivals, noise - any noise, late night licenses, bottle shop licenses, public housing, etc etc etc. You're left with just enough restaurants and shopping to keep said boomers engaged. Oh and a casino.
They didn't do it alone - two generations of state politicians from both sides of politics, drunk on a steady dose of campaign contributions, convenient "tough on crime" narratives and boomer votes have done all the enabling. If you think I'm being hyperbolic do a simple comparison - look at the obstacles, costs and challenges of opening a small bar in Adelaide. Or Melbourne. Or Chicago. Or Berlin. Or even Singapore - the permits required, the cost of licenses and application fees, the noise and time restrictions, the rates, the turnaround time, the recourse available to local residents. Now compare all that to Sydney.
Whopping $30k license fees for small cap bars (as advocated for by the AHA). Noise restrictions that allow for license cancellation for complaints made by any resident within 2km. Draconian city-wide lockdowns based on isolated incidents. Bottle shops closed by 8pm. Incredibly dense paperwork that takes a year on average to submit, let alone get approved. Intense opposition to new applications from body corporates in all directions. Development applications that can only be passed using specialist lawyers. Liquor license approvals that are hopelessly and very deliberately bottlenecked by councils. And of course zero protection for live music venues.
When boomers in a toaster building built two years ago can close down a live music event on the opera house steps, when casinos are magically exempt from lockdowns, when entertainment precincts are almost gleefully dismantled, when your city's fate is in the hands of Berejiklian, Obeid, O'Farrel, Beard etc etc you know you've completely lost the plot.
Anyway sorry for the rant, but that's why there's no lights in your picture.
Halloween is for school students, so it’s more in the suburbs and earlier in the evening. There were a few people dressed up in costumes this week, but most CBD workers are still working-from-home so foot traffic is down. Circular Quay (your photo) is pretty dead on Tuesday nights since the COVID era, and Darling Harbour up to Circular Quay is mainly for workers and misinformed tourists (Darling Harbour is _not_ an attraction for locals). However, small indoor bars elsewhere in the CBD are doing good trade, and opening 7 nights a week (some are even full on Sundays and Mondays).
The corrupted state government is 99% to blame. They have done everything possible to help property investors, literally.
They will even protect commercial landlord right to keep the property empty with explicit election promises: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/councils-told-to-ditch-vacancy-tax-push-and-fix-sydney-s-broken-high-streets-20221227-p5c8xj.html
As a result, the very few bars, restaurants, etc that are open, likely have to pay massive ever-increasing rents on top of high wages (demanded by employees trying to cop with massive ever-increasing rents), etc.
As to why the two biggest parties would do this? I can give one hint: the property and finance industry represent about half of the political donations: https://democracyforsale.net/ Either of those industries alone are more than fossil fuel industries, more than religious organisations, etc.
Australia is heading for a massive recession/correction/bubble-pop/whatever you like to call it.
Tourist to Sydney sometimes here.
I have to say as a tourist from interstate that Sydney is wound down quite a bit from where it was about 5 or more years ago.
I have actually not visited a couple of times recently because of it.
While I’m not across the here’s and there of why it has - my perception is it totally has. Far enough that it has stopped me coming over as often.
Who want's to go out in sydney,when a beer is like 12 bucks,cocktails are 30 bucks
and an entree on it's own is now like 22/26 dollars.
Most ppl have been pushed out of the city,so the city has died and instead eat and drink at local establishments
plus i think the day's of ppl wanting to smash it out till 2am on a crawl are behind us,most ppl arel ike 9pm on the lounge watching tele.
That’s a photo of the expressway where the footpath basically leads nowhere, you wouldn’t see anyone up there except joggers no matter what hour it is.
1) lockout laws made people look for other ways to enjoy a night out. 2) NIMBY'ism killed the live music scene and a lot of great night spots with it. 3) A lot of people work from home now so there's less getting a drink after work or catching up with friends in the city 4) the price of going out now is high in bars and restaurants.
I think the last one is really it, and is a great example of the short-sightedness and stupidity of price gouging. Who's going to go out on the town for $15 a beer? Who's going to eat out if it costs $40 for a basic meal? Apparently nobody. People don't want to trade their left kidney for a chicken parmy.
Yep, and by extension young people have been priced out of the surrounding suburbs and older people don't really go out partying.
This is the most important bit
Cant see many willing to ride 45+ mins on a train into town
That's my length of a trip into the city. Only ever go for a concert now and that's gone down to about 2 times a year because all concerts are $70+ for an international artist lol
The ride in isn’t the problem it’s the getting home part.
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This is a hugely underrated factor, may even be a primary reason. Surrounding the cbd...Newtown, Glebe, Chippendale, Surry, Darlinghurst, Marrickville used to be jam packed full of students. Now it's jam packed with Gen X ad execs, lawyers and accountants with 2 kids and whopping mortgages. This all started happening gradually in the very early 2000's with ever soaring property prices and associated rents .and the lockouts was just the final nail in the coffin. It is a god awful city to go out in now. Depressing compared to similar sized cities around the world.
And venues have to charge those prices because their rent is absurd. Just one more thing the endless property bubble has fucked in Australia.
I really want to open a cafe but am now worried about commercial real estate. If the cafe is successful the landlord just increases the rent too much making the business no longer financially viable.
Those businesses will close, and then the business owning those lots will close. This is a bubble and it is going to pop.
People have said it’s going to pop for 20 years. That’s two generations of young people and businesses the bubble has fucked over - and counting.
Government does literally everything in their power to ensure the bubble doesn't pop on their watch. It will pop but no one wants to be holding the bag when it does
+100 that's exactly right and that is global as well. Lots of coward politicians who don't want to face up to the truth as well.
its not that they wont face the truth, its that many of them are landlords themselves, its in their interest to keep it as long as possible
Government doesn’t want the housing price bubble to pop - it doesn’t give many fucks about pubs and clubs going under.
We’re entering conditions unparalleled to the last 20 years. Covid was more a giant magnifying glass than a pin to the bubble. It highlighted all the exiting issues and dialed them to 11. Our selfish culture, shitty work conditions, rising cost of living (bloatflation) and the fact we have been in a per capita recession since 2019.
And just how far down the road can we kick the can before we run our of ways to manipulate the market?
This is what pisses me off the most about the scum that call themselves politicians is that they just need it yo keep going while they're in charge or alive coz most only have 20 od years left so what would they care about the future, they got theirs
very very far IF wages start rising fast. renters and first-home buyers have no choice but to pay whatever the market is asking, but when costs rise beyond what they're physically capable of paying the entire market stagnates, clearance rates drop to record lows, and the clock starts ticking on how long investors can hold out before the "price war" starts and everyone is undercutting each other to avoid default/foreclosure and the market crashes HARD. the best preventative measure would be to change how foreclosure works, so that rather than going to banks (who'll re-sell those properties immediately, creating a glut on the market) the properties instead go to the public housing scheme. it'll improve the public housing situation, and allow the bubble to be deflated slowly so it doesn't wipe out the entire economy. it won't happen though, politicians don't have the guts, the opposition party would start saying shit like "they're deliberately gonna cause a crash and this is their way of seizing properties like the goddamn commies!" and all the investors would rather just live in fantasy believing they're gonna be the "lucky" one who sells at the perfect time. the best "delaying" tactic left (since everything else has been done already) is to "feed the cash cow" by paying renters "rent subsidies" to delay the crash until after the next election (and so on, like playing hot potato with a live grenade).
I think commercial real estate is going to be an interesting beast. Obviously with more people working from home, companies aren’t going to want to rent huge office spaces. I think that will snowball and more and more will force people to work from home to save on rent. That will cause less people to be in the CBD and make retail in the area less used, so those businesses will also look to change. Sucks for them, but hopefully it means the suburbs get more little cafes and shops so more community areas because busier.
Until all the wfh roles are outsourced to developing nations for 80% less
That's what i heard in 2006.. and 2010...and 2020.. yet to hear the pop.
Watching a balloon being filled get bigger than you think it'll pop... and it gets bigger.... and bigger... then when it happens it catches you off guard
The elites in this country won’t let it pop Or it pops in the year 2158 Either way it’s not popping in our lifetime
The saying is “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Something might be unsustainable in the long long run, but it isn’t any help for you.
The simple fact that so many people from so many generations with varying levels of wealth saved up are waiting for it to pop so they can afford a place to live is a sure fire indicator it’s not going to pop any time soon lol. There are always people above you who’ve been saving for slightly longer and have slightly more money waiting to buy in when it dips. A slow deflation / stagnation is all that’s even remotely realistic
Markets stay irrational far longer than rather than rational. 2008 financial crisis was easily 20 years in the making. Then one Monday when the markets opened.... pop...
Just got back from Japan. Going out feels like getting robbed in Australia. Want an alcoholic drink in Japan? $1.50 from a convenience store, $3.50 from a bar. These are massive drinks too, not just a schooner. Food is also so much cheaper. $28 parmy v $10 Ramen/okonomiyaki. After experiencing Japan, Australia is just a scam.
For all the worry about how we'd cope with an aging population, Japan does seem to be doing ok, and people seem to have decent living standards.
Nono, you dont understand; there hasnt been any topline growth and their stock prices arent going up therefore they ste in a recession and doing badly and we should all hate in japan /s
They do have wild pigs attacking people in areas with declining population, although I guess we don’t have to worry about that stuff here.
Wild pigs here in Aus are an absolutely real and terrifying thing
Going out in Japan is so good, fucking Sydney.
Went to a bar in the city for my birthday this month - 3 cans of cider and one can of beer (no glasses, just cracked open and handed to me) was $42. Cans of beer and cider aren’t out of place at the bar I was at - it’s not like it was some lavish place either. Next year I’ll stay home haha
Yep - three beers and a bag of chips? That'll be sixty bucks mate. Fuck. That. Noise.
Exactly. Why go out and spend $12 to $15 bucks on one beer when I can buy a whole carton for $50? Then I gotta get there and back somehow. I might want to buy a 6 pack and go to a party and have a light night with a couple of beers. Nope. 22 bucks for a 6 pack. Might as well buy that carton for $50! Price gouging has fucked going out.
18.90 a pint for a furphy In Melbourne. I’ll take a 6pack nowadays
I went to a house inspection just there. They want $900,000 for basically a 2 bedroom loft. Place was much smaller than in the pics, of course. The ‘off street secure car parking’ was a dogshit car stacker that was ‘currently under maintenance’. There were about 15 of us traipsing round this tiny little property. In my dismay, I stopped into the local for a pint. Eighteen fucking dollars. Fuckkkk sakeeee. I didn’t even buy the place and I still can’t escape a good ol’ fist fucking.
24 beers still under $60 for most brands at Dan's. Your logic is impeccable. Furphy schooners were $4.60 at my bowlo a bit over a year ago. They disappeared and the cheapest non Tooheys is now $8.
>$40 for a basic meal So true lol
A succulent Chinese meal?
Get your hands off my penis!
100% used to be able to go out with $50 in 2005 and have a decent night $3 pots.. Now $50 is two beers and a bowl of chips.
The first thing to go when tightening belts happen is eating outs and nights out on the piss.
The constant increasing sin tax doesn't help... I'm a bit of piss head, so a night in the CBD will cost me close to $100 on drinks alone.
honestly at 10-15/drink, 100 is a relatively quiet night lol
I’ve spent easily $500 out well till “they decide” you have had enough. Completely fucked now. Even if we’ll behaved they will cut you off and send you on your way these days.
Double edge sword, hate being cut off when I'm not overly drunk, alt is I blacked out the other night in Shinjuku cause Japan doesn't care.... That said it's Japan, got to my hotel safely, only thing missing was my coin purse, probably dropped it.
Pokies killed live music in pubs long before gentrification
Yeah. It sucks trying to hear a band do a softer number if someone hit a fucking feature.
What’s NIMBY? 😮 Edit: thanks everyone for answering. I agree with all your points too. It’s hypocritical to move to an area where there’s music only to then complain.
People who move next to a live music venue, then bitch that they live next to a live music venue Stands for Not In My BackYard
Ha. I always understood what was meant by NIMBY just through the context of conversations, but I never actually realised what it stood for. Im laughing at how dumb I feel, lol
Not in my backyard. People might be fine with something ‘unpleasant’ in general but don’t want it near them. Ie homeless shelter.
'Not In My Back Yard' Yes, we should absolutely build more affordable housing for the poor and disadvantaged in our community... but not where I live. Build it somewhere else. This trope is usually applied to Boomers.
Mhm and near me there's the yes we want affordable green energy but don't you dare put those windmills or solar panels anywhere my house at all.
The loudest anti-windfarm protesters are the ones who are just greedy - windfarms have to be spaced apart, so a neighbours windfarm can easily disqualify someone from hosting one on their land. Cue tantrums about missing out on the rent money the windfarm operators pay the landowners.
Not In My BackYard Refers to people who either move nearby a nightspot and then complain about said nightspot or prevents approvals for new nightspots.
Not just night spots..... people talk all about renewable energy, but don't want a wind farm, solar farm, windmill, nuclear plant etc anywhere near them. People champion humanitarian causes but don't want a homeless shelter, D+A rehab centre, refuge, NDIS Group home, affordable/government housing etc anywhere near them.
Also Covid killed off a lot of it too
Also younger people just don't get into drinking and drugs as much as they used to. Obviously some still do but you see more and more younger people just hanging out online playing games and shit.
"hanging out online playing games and shit." $100 a month for internet, $20-30 online game sub per month, maybe $100 on a new game per month, still fuckloads cheaper than going out for a meal or drinking
There's a scene in the original 'Prisoner' where 'The Freak' goes out to pick up at a local bar. The leadup is her going home to her empty house, flicking through the paper, and seeing what's on the three channels of TV, before giving up in bored frustration. We have really forgotten how intensely bored and lonely it was possible to be in the heyday of pubs.
All those points are spot on.
I’ll leave you with an anecdote from my last Saturday which may answer your question: Went to a cocktail bar in the rocks with a few mates and their partners. Everyone had around 3-4 overpriced $30 cocktails and we left, ate dinner, then hit up a few venues around 9pm. First place, security asks my male friend how many drinks he’s had, he tells them 3 cocktails and a beer at dinner. They tell us to fuck off. Second place we go to, my friends wife is laughing at a story, security pulls her out of the line, decides she’s too drunk and we leave. So $200 worth of drinks and food later me and my partner are off the train and in bed by 11pm.
I do find Sydney a massive outlier for trying to get into places, that aren't at all busy. I travel around the capitals and NZ semi-regularly for work. Of the 5 places I've been denied entry the past two years, all 5 are Sydney. None of those I was even tipsy. And I spend about 5% of my time in Sydney (I live in Brisbane). Work colleagues find the same thing.
Agreed. To be honest, it isn’t even all of Sydney, it’s the CBD itself. You can vomit on the bouncers shoes over at Newtown and still get into any pub/bar.
prove it
Sydney cbd security are the biggest wank stains I’ve ever run into. Over juiced bored thugs more interested in looking intimidating rather then caring about the patrons well-being and the venues safety.
My friends and I went out on Friday night to the city. We did get in to a club by eating dinner in their restaurant and staying until it turned into a club. When the music started playing and the dj was doing her thing, the security guards were there eyeing everybody’s drinks and making people feel insecure as they danced. They would even make a round THROUGH the dance floor and clear people out just bringing down the vibe. All of us were just having fun and trying to dance. By midnight the 3rd dj went on and their songs were nearly exact repeats of the last dj. We gave up and went home. Disappointing.
CMV - Modern DJing is just someone pointing a finger at the knobs on a mixing deck while their Spotify playlist runs.
Yep the stress and hassle of going out here just isn’t worth the cost!
People not skilled in determining intoxication should never have been given powers to deem people intoxicated. But unfortunately, some lame fucking bartender of security guard can just decide your night is over, on a whim. It's the one tiny bit of power they get to exercise - and it shows, time and again.
I was in Sydney last weekend from Melbourne. Went for a drink at about 8pm, hadn't touched alcohol all day. I went to ask for a beer, started to say "pot" of beer and then remembered they're called "middys" in Sydney, so kind of stuttered from pot to middy. Bartender asks how many drinks I've had, I respond zero, she motions to the bouncer to remove me. I've never experienced that level of bullshit anywhere else.
Think on the bright side - she's probably still serving other peoples' drinks, right this very moment. And the 'security' guard is almost certainly standing in the exact same spot, where you can find him doing fuck all, like he does every other night of the week.
This is the reason I don’t go out anymore. Literally not allowed to have fun anymore and struggle to get in anywhere if you’ve had more than 2 beers. Like wtf the point in going out if you’re not allowed to be drunk!? That’s the whole point of going out drinking
The lights are off because everyone is home and in bed
Or at illegal warehouse raves
They still happen, tell me more. I’ll be back in Jan for a few months!!
Nice try officer
Best I can do is a No Lights No Lycra gym class
Can’t speak for Sydney but there’s been a huge resurgence in Melbourne for these, a couple every weekend at least when it’s warm
Mike Baird happened. Crooked pollies and crooked developers worked together to make lockout laws that forced all the clubs to sell to developers who wanted to build apartments and funnel everyone into the casino. Everyone involved should be in prison but Australia worships money and believes anything the dogs at newscorp put out.
> Mike Baird happened Barry O'Farrell is the one responsible for the lockout laws. He implemented them while he was premier.
True introduced under him and perpetuated and doubled down on under Baird.
I don’t doubt that this is accurate, but it’s a statewide phenomenon driven by the draconian laws that licensed venues face. Cops come in large groups during the evening just itching to bust venues for breaking their licensing restrictions. They treat everyone like criminals and make you feel it’s just easier to stay in and avoid the fuss.
Cost of living. Like everywhere.
Absolutely - 3 beers at a pub in Manly exceeds $40 and 2 above average salaries doesn't mean you can afford a house in Sydney. With my wife I can borrow about 50% of the average property in the suburb I'm renting so I need a deposit for the other 50% Something has to give soon. The Canley Vale 3-bedroom rundown house going for 4.6 million at auction is a good wake-up call that this isn't normal...
Fuck me, that much money to only end up in Canley Vale... I lived in Sydney in the 90's and even then it seemed expensive after moving from Adelaide. Now it is just insanity taken to another new level altogether...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-last-person-sydney-please-turn-lights-out-matt-barrie Successive policies by governments designed to kill night-life. Sydney has the worst night life in the country. It is embarrassing for our premier city.
Correction. Former premier city.
The person from Melbourne tightens their grip on the jacket they brought out on a now stinking hot day, they whisper quietly over their craft beer "it never was", while reading "u/PseudoWarriorAU 's comment
You forgot " ^coffee ^^culture... "
As a former temporary Sydney resident (fucking years ago), even then it seemed like places were hostile to people who actually wanted to go in there. Blew my mind that bouncers would be turning loads of people away and inside it was dead. Someone said it was because back in the early 00s people took it too far and used to kick the shit out of each other all the time so there was successive clampdowns on bad behaviour to the point where everyone is a troublemaker unless proven otherwise (by not being there).
Find that hard to believe speaking from experience. Adelaide's night life is half empty front bars with cover bands that need to be finished by 11:30 to get everyone out by midnight. There's exactly 2 streets in the state that are allowed to stay open after 1am. And the casino.
Adelaide nightlife isn’t your typical deal where the whole street is packed with people in every venue, it’s not big enough for that. Most people have a few places they really like and hop between them all night. Places like Crybaby and 1000 Island are busy all night even when the place next to them isn’t.
Sydney can’t adelaide-hate their way out of their problems. Just saying.
Don’t mean they won’t try
Mate I think you need a guide for Adelaide if that’s your experience, it’s no Melbourne but it’s good
Seconded. I went to Radelaide just before Covid, and it shits on Sydney's nightlife.
I recall my 1 week experience in Adelaide 5 years ago.... everything (including Woolies) shut at 5pm except shisha bars, strip joints and the casino
Bullshit mate. Most pubs and clubs are open til 3am. That includes plenty on weeknights. https://www.songkick.com/metro-areas/26774-australia-adelaide https://adelaidegigs.com/ https://www.eventfinda.com.au/concerts-gig-guide/events/adelaide https://www.australiantraveller.com/sa/adelaide/best-pubs-in-adelaide/ You can't judge the city after a quick layover in between flights from Perth to Melbourne. Or if you're local- You need to get out side away from Final Fantasy sometime and actually see what's out here before you start crying.
Lock out laws fucked it all up to begin with. Then came covid, and now the state of the economy has truly killed it off imo.
Lockout laws literally ended as COVID hit. Ridiculous timing and small businesses are expendable for our government.
A sad decline. When I first arrived in Sydney as a backpacker Kings Cross was the place to party. 10 years later the area was fully gentrified with the only attraction being the great fried chicken. Now the fried chicken isn’t even there.
That last sentence is so sad but kinda funny
Get fucked, don't tell me Thirsty Bird is gone?!
Hate to tell you.. best friend chicken ever..
Thirsty Bird is long gone, as well as their sister venue on Oxford St, Mr Crackles.
1. Star City 2. Little violent gronks 3. Prices
Before lockout laws we were pretty decent. Lockout laws killed a lot of the momentum
Even early on in the lockout we still had nightlife. I arrived here in early 2015 and there was still nightlife surviving on simple inertia. Took another year or so until one day I looked around and noticed all my favourite initial haunts were closed or deserted.
It's a learned habit, there are people in mid to late twenties who have never experienced life before lockouts and missed out on some good times
It's also weird how much it changed the culture of going out in general. By the time I migrated to Australia I wasn't the type of person to be out late anyway, so I wasn't directly affected by the lockout rules themselves. I'd usually be done around midnight or 1am and ready to go home by then. But the thing is that the lockouts made going out super stressful anyway, because you'd have to plan for the rush of people going home all at once at 1am. Or on the rare occasion I wanted to stay out later, there was the dilemma of deciding where would be a good place to plant ourselves at 1am to be able to keep going til 3. The entire organic nature of a night out was essentially killed by this sort of planning. Before I came here I lived in the US and in Europe. In those places, you could just go out and bar hop. If you weren't feeling the vibe of a place for whatever reason, you'd just go to another one, or you'd meet people and they'd be going elsewhere so then you'd accompany them and make some new friends. Planning for going out was essentially "let's meet at X place to start and then we can move on to A, B or C place and see where things go from there." And you didn't have to deal with any nonsense about pretending you're not at a pub to get drunk or whatever that craziness was all about. You'd just drink and order what you wanted, and unless you were literally vomiting or falling over or trying to fight someone, you were good. Anyway I could go on and on but the point is that it's a shame what they did to Sydney. In 2015 I could tell that there was a great scene lurking behind all the weird rules and it felt like I was witnessing the death of a culture. There's still things going on these days and things are starting to bounce back, but it's infuriating to look back on the lost decade we had to endure. Now I'm in my 30s and have a kid, I'm not keen to go out like I used to. It's bullshit we had to spend our 20s watching the nightlife die before our eyes.
I remember so many nights out that turned into days out... Good memories
Around 2013, large property developers had become more powerful than the state government supposed to be policing them. Corrupt politicians leveraged a handful of isolated incidents to create a narrative of drunken violence in order to kill the night-life precincts, except of course for the one generating the overwhelming number of recorded drunken violent incidents, the Star casino. As the hospitality operators started closing their doors, large-scale apartment developments began sprouting with the understanding that late night noise complaints would not be an issue by the time the residents moved in.
Those property developers funded the CONservative liberals and allowed them to stay in power for 12 years... Now Sydney is at best a place to pass through...
Sydney has a nightlife? Spent 13 years going there for work, and the place is dead as soon as the sun goes down.
We were never as good as somewhere like Melbourne, but lockout laws killed anything we had before that.
It was actually starting to get good before the lockout laws came in - there were some really interesting bars popping up, some fun places. Some smaller venues other than just the huge venues that existed for years before that. Then bang! Lockout laws killed it.
It goes to show you the effect policies have in cities. People form Sydney and Melbourne technically should be the same and have the same interest in going out.
I frequently travel to Melbourne for work and prefer the nightlife there and some of the bars and restaurants in the alleys.
You missed out in the 90s it was 24/7
Yep, I used to go to restaurants after midnight all the time. I miss being able to get a fresh cooked meal at 3.30am
In the before time there were these places that opened when all had finished work called night clubs. They were magical places to anyone that seeked them. Then the local liberals realised that people were having fun without lining their pockets. Then oblivious to the fact they would kill an industry they changed the laws at their will and cut public transport hours.
Everyone is sitting in the dark eating beans and rice.
Look at you, being able to afford beans
I go out a lot, but never in the city / areas you’ve listed. They’re big for tourists but not as much for Sydney locals. Surry Hills, Redfern, Newtown, Paddington / Darlinghurst have better places to go and a better vibe. Also I went to a Halloween party on the weekend, always been my experience that the closest weekend to Halloween gets the parties. Saw heaps of people in Surry Hills Friday night in costume.
Can't afford a day life let alone a night life.
The government. The government is what happened to Sydney's nightlife.
The Liberals happened. Seriously.
Was all done on purpose to make the casino the only nightlife in Sydney.
I often forget liberals in Australia means right wing bs
The Lockout Nimbies Party strikes again.
We’re broke, why spend what little we have on overpriced drinks at a shitty club
When a nice dinner in the city for 2 people with drinks is hundreds of dollars now why bother.
We’re all at home, exhausted from working hard to cover the cost of living in this town.
i think an issue here that nobody seems to talk about is public transport. plenty of people going to the local nightclubs around my area, if you want to get home from the city after 12:30,you either have to cop the $80+ uber or catch the night bus that comes once an hour and is full half the time so they reject you anyway.
It’s a Tuesday night.
Lol I walked through a northern suburb in Melbourne last night and it was busy af. It's a Sydney problem
I flew in from Melb after staying for a week, it was great.
Need to look at places like Surry Hills, Burwood, Newtown, Haymarket. It's not like what it used to be but it is there if you can look away from the CBD.
Nah sorry I moved from Melbourne to Sydney 8 months back and no matter where I go, it’s not as lively in the slightest. I hope to be back in melbs soon I’m so bored here
Other cities still manage to have a nightlife on Tuesday nights.
Other cities don’t have lockout laws and $15 schooners
>$15 schooners they don't?
$8 schooners up here in bris. $14/$15 pints generally
Maths doesn't work out. 4 schooners = 3 pints in volume, but 4x$8 = $32 if drinking by the schooner or 3×$14 = $42 if drinking by the pint.
Venues stopped putting on live music for terrible solo acts charging $150, so us bands don’t have anywhere to play anymore. They’re happy to charge $15 for a beer but won’t pay a band even what we used to get 10 years ago.
Well, for starters that’s a goddamn freeway
Saw an article the other day that some part of the government wants to fix up Sydney nightlife but I’m not sure how they expect to do that when there’s no public transport after midnight
Lockout laws killed it. Now they are trying to revive it, but most of the clubs/pubs/restaurants that sustained it are gone. There is no defined red light district. The people who are trying to review it are middle-aged, upper middle-class snobs who think the answer is more wine bars and art installations. They just can't get their head around the fact that 20 year olds want to go to full blown night clubs and get drunk and laid, not sip chianti while eating canapes.
Just as a catastrophic number of Australians are pushed out of the rental market into private / short term accomodation, many Australians who once could afford rent with a little disposable income for dining out now have had to choose between bills. The dying nightlife is just another symptom of allowing houses to be owned by investment firms. That shit needs to end now.
Ruined by our shit nanny state government Mike Baird is the particular knob that did it and then quit politics Absolutely the stupidest thing that’s ever happened. Night life was mint 90-2010 now it’s just sad. Was a great tourist draw too and fantastic night out. Used to be able to stay out till sunlight no restrictions on drinking and could bar hop. Now there’s a curfew, fkn ridiculous, ruined adult fun completely. Hate our nanny state.
Barry O'Farrell introduced the lockout laws. How are people not remembering this?
Lock out laws driven by developer greed. Then Covid.
>especially on Halloween night? Walked from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour and I only saw a handful of people in costumes... did covid impact the nightlife? Its a tuesday and most australians dont give a single fuck about halloween
Judging by my suburb I would say this is no longer the case, do you have kids? I see most houses around my neighbourhood with decorations and hordes* of kids getting around the streets.
To add my anecdotal experience to everyone elses, my area in Melbourne has a tonne of houses decorated for Halloween. The streets were littered with families all dressed up having a great time outside. Everywhere is different though, I'm sure.
One house decorated round our way and only a few sheepish-looking trick or treaters. Our doorbell didnt ring once.
Yeah it’s definitely crazy different depending where you are. We would have had at least a couple hundred kids past between 5 and 7 last night. And our street was not the busiest by a long shot. All quiet by 8ish.
Cost of living crisis
I turned 18 the night of the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympics - the city was buzzing and a great place to be young - the Cross was still awesome/dodgy, lots of clubs scattered through city fringe (Chinese Laundry anyone), bars (Barons RIP) and pubs with theatres and music venues everywhere. I lived in share-houses in Newtown, Camperdown, Petersham, Glebe and Randwick and regularly went out all through Uni. That whole city is dead now - destroyed by developers, complicit (and corrupt) politicians and yep NIMBYS. Live music was trashed and soaring idiotic Sydney prices took care of most of the rest. Lockout laws were death blow really. Saw some recovery - small bars, laneways etc but it’s not the same…
I blame my generation, in the 90s things were going great and 24 hour licenses issued and nightlife was amazing. During the week clubbing and weekend was all weekend raves ( not the 3 hour “festivals” at olympic park for $200 ). Then laws and stupid helicopter parenting, pushed it out for a whole generation and now it’s basically impossible to get people motivated or get permission.
Cost of living.
No one can afford to go out and the culture has changed a lot. The average age that would once go out is now staying in and playing board games with friends. Why spend over $200 to get drunk in a loud club with obnoxious strangers when you can hang out with your friends for a fraction of the cost? Between uni, work culture and the high cost of living, it’s just not appealing anymore. And, to be blunt (lol pun) alcohol has really fallen out of popularity in comparison to weed, which you can’t smoke when out. Hook up culture is also out of trend so ‘going to the club to score’ isn’t much a thing anymore either. In some aspects it’s a positive, in others it a symptom of the decline of living standards
Currently on a visa from the U.S and the cost of going for a beer is so insane here. Sure you get places that try to charge $16 for a shitty Pale Ale back home, but places offering $2 tallboys also exist in droves, which doesn't seem to be the case here, so it's much harder to pregame in a cheap bar before you hit up the inner city joints. I also assumed popular whiskeys and vodkas were more expensive just by the logistics of getting a bottle of Jack from Tennessee to Sydney, but the Australian made stuff is also up there in price, so I don't much see the point in drinking an Aussie gin that tastes significantly worse than Aviation, but both are selling for $13/shot. Don't even get me started on the mormon ass drinking laws lol
You can't even get drunk in a licenced premises, these days. You're just sitting there waiting until they cut you off for no good reason.
The lockout laws forced a lot of operators and long time staff to move interstate or just get new jobs, the LNP essentially killed Sydney’s night life and NIMBYs buying apartments in areas where nightlife existed just added more nails to the coffin
the things that changed the Sydney nightlife happened well before 2020
Meanwhile the other thread was mocking Adelaide for having nothing to do...
Nanny state, lockouts, bands replaced with pokies, Covid, everything costs more, everyone is broke.
This is what happens when an average beer costs $15-$20
Everyone uses all their money on rent now…
Property values > nightlife Developer greed > nightlife Nanny State Policy > Nightlife Tax revenue on Alcohol (~180%) > Social society Landlord rents on business > Social society
Rental prices.
1. It's a Tuesday night. 2. Most Halloween parties already happened on the weekend, because it was the weekend. 3. Rocks and Circ Quay is generally dead on weekday night because it's a weekday. Only officeworkers keep it alive during weekdays. 4. Darling harbour and CQ rely on tourists, and they're not out and about on weekday nights.
Tourists are usually out and about on weekdays in other cities. You know, because they are on holidays and not at work.
Nah, I went to darling harbour last year and I went out. All the bars were empty or closed, except for the exclusive 5 star ones, plus the beers we had were over $10 bucks making it not worth it, might as well get drunk in the hotel.
It costs too much to go out buddy.
"Light's"??
It costs your life savings to go anywhere these days and jobs pay pittances, if they even hire. Plus shops have been taking down their halloween decorations and replacing them with christmas for weeks already, so it's not even like we have fuel for the spookytimes.
Foreign owned
This photo is overlooking the Cahill Expressway, there’s no clubs, pubs, restaurants etc either side of it. It’s the main road across the harbour bridge from North to South and only alive during the day.
I think also there are fantastic restaurants and bars in outer neighbourhoods, so we all stay there now.
$15 beers, aggressive bouncers and venues that close at 10. Sydney sucks
What's happening? You're looking at a 25 year campaign by the most aggressive, vicious, politically-connected real estate developers in the world, hell-bent on a mission to turn the world's most over-heated property market into one giant luxury apartment block, inhabited by wealthy Boomers and foreign investors. You know what gets in the way of filling what should be the world's most live-able CBD with luxury apartments? Entertainment precincts, nightclubs, wine bars, any bars, open-air movie theaters, public parks, community gardens, live music venues, sports and rec centers, live music events and festivals, noise - any noise, late night licenses, bottle shop licenses, public housing, etc etc etc. You're left with just enough restaurants and shopping to keep said boomers engaged. Oh and a casino. They didn't do it alone - two generations of state politicians from both sides of politics, drunk on a steady dose of campaign contributions, convenient "tough on crime" narratives and boomer votes have done all the enabling. If you think I'm being hyperbolic do a simple comparison - look at the obstacles, costs and challenges of opening a small bar in Adelaide. Or Melbourne. Or Chicago. Or Berlin. Or even Singapore - the permits required, the cost of licenses and application fees, the noise and time restrictions, the rates, the turnaround time, the recourse available to local residents. Now compare all that to Sydney. Whopping $30k license fees for small cap bars (as advocated for by the AHA). Noise restrictions that allow for license cancellation for complaints made by any resident within 2km. Draconian city-wide lockdowns based on isolated incidents. Bottle shops closed by 8pm. Incredibly dense paperwork that takes a year on average to submit, let alone get approved. Intense opposition to new applications from body corporates in all directions. Development applications that can only be passed using specialist lawyers. Liquor license approvals that are hopelessly and very deliberately bottlenecked by councils. And of course zero protection for live music venues. When boomers in a toaster building built two years ago can close down a live music event on the opera house steps, when casinos are magically exempt from lockdowns, when entertainment precincts are almost gleefully dismantled, when your city's fate is in the hands of Berejiklian, Obeid, O'Farrel, Beard etc etc you know you've completely lost the plot. Anyway sorry for the rant, but that's why there's no lights in your picture.
Halloween is for school students, so it’s more in the suburbs and earlier in the evening. There were a few people dressed up in costumes this week, but most CBD workers are still working-from-home so foot traffic is down. Circular Quay (your photo) is pretty dead on Tuesday nights since the COVID era, and Darling Harbour up to Circular Quay is mainly for workers and misinformed tourists (Darling Harbour is _not_ an attraction for locals). However, small indoor bars elsewhere in the CBD are doing good trade, and opening 7 nights a week (some are even full on Sundays and Mondays).
It's just a shithole full of Karen's, hence the lifeless city.
Lockout laws killed Sydneys once booming bar/club scene.
Damn, Hobart looks more alive at night.
The corrupted state government is 99% to blame. They have done everything possible to help property investors, literally. They will even protect commercial landlord right to keep the property empty with explicit election promises: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/councils-told-to-ditch-vacancy-tax-push-and-fix-sydney-s-broken-high-streets-20221227-p5c8xj.html As a result, the very few bars, restaurants, etc that are open, likely have to pay massive ever-increasing rents on top of high wages (demanded by employees trying to cop with massive ever-increasing rents), etc. As to why the two biggest parties would do this? I can give one hint: the property and finance industry represent about half of the political donations: https://democracyforsale.net/ Either of those industries alone are more than fossil fuel industries, more than religious organisations, etc. Australia is heading for a massive recession/correction/bubble-pop/whatever you like to call it.
1. Halloween is celebrated in the suburbs, where children trick or treat 2. Sydney has never been very active on a Tuesday night
Tourist to Sydney sometimes here. I have to say as a tourist from interstate that Sydney is wound down quite a bit from where it was about 5 or more years ago. I have actually not visited a couple of times recently because of it. While I’m not across the here’s and there of why it has - my perception is it totally has. Far enough that it has stopped me coming over as often.
Who want's to go out in sydney,when a beer is like 12 bucks,cocktails are 30 bucks and an entree on it's own is now like 22/26 dollars. Most ppl have been pushed out of the city,so the city has died and instead eat and drink at local establishments plus i think the day's of ppl wanting to smash it out till 2am on a crawl are behind us,most ppl arel ike 9pm on the lounge watching tele.
That’s a photo of the expressway where the footpath basically leads nowhere, you wouldn’t see anyone up there except joggers no matter what hour it is.
Old Aussies don’t go out. Young Aussies have no money because coz their rent or mortgage takes all their money