NSW’s Live Music Taskforce unveils action plan

NSW’s Live Music and Performance Taskforce today unveiled its Live Music Matters action plan to create new live opportunities and audiences for musicians, and tackle issues faced by the state’s live music sector. The plan was unveiled by Taskforce chair John Wardle and Lord Mayor Clover Moore at the GoodGod Small Club in Sydney.

“The work undertaken by this Taskforce is nationally significant,” said Wardle, also Co-Director of the National Live Music Office. “A cultural planning policy that addresses both regulation and development of the live music and performance sector has never been undertaken on this level before. Cities plan for infrastructure, transport and the major performing arts, and this report shows how Sydney can plan for live music and local performance.”

The 11-person Taskforce was set up in December 2012 by the City of Sydney.

Some of its 57 recommendations include:

• Simplifying the approval process for low impact live music and performances.

• Providing financial help for infrastructure and capital costs to encourage new and existing venues to present live music and performance.

• Using  indoor and outdoor City properties as live music and performance venues by improving sound, lighting and seating.

• Making City-owned community properties available as rehearsal space.

• Working with neighbouring councils and the NSW Government to establish a new major outdoor event space for the Sydney area.

• Creating the role of a City of Sydney live music and performance liaison officer.

• Exploring changes to the liquor freeze for venues that have live music and entertainment as their primary purpose.

• Setting new sound proofing standards for new residential developments.

• Amending parking rules so musicians and  performers can unload equipment regardless of vehicle type.

• Meeting the increased demand from young people for live music by increasing the frequency of all ages events.

• Finding better ways to deal with complaints from neighbours including mediation.

•  A formal mediation policy to be set up to offer free independent and confidential mediation for resolving noise complaints.

•  Developing information guides that provide specific information on the processes for setting up temporary and permanent venues in the City of Sydney.

•  Hosting a public symposium next year in partnership with the National Live Music Office to investigate compliance and affordability issues in small and medium size venues.

•  Undertaking research into design and construction standards to reduce low frequency or bass noise in residential buildings and advocating to the Australian Building Codes Board for an Australian standard.

• Ensuring City staff who take enforcement action against live music venues are experienced and trained to assess and determine offensive noise.

•  Working with other agencies to gather data on alcohol consumption and behaviour in live music and performance venues.

•   Coordinating administrative approval processes with the Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing to make it easier to establish venues.

•  Conducting annual surveys of venue operators to understand their experience dealing with the City of Sydney.

•  Working with the Department of Immigration and promoters to develop new models to help international visiting artists play with local musicians.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore revealed that research by the City showed that more people wanted live music. She acknowledged that the once healthy Sydney live music scene had gone into decline from the 1990s for a variety of reasons. Now only 6% (or 143) of the 2,200 Sydney venues with liquor licenses have a live music license.

“One of the reasons I championed the introduction of small bars in Sydney was to encourage more live music venues but as this plan highlights we need to make further changes or live music in Sydney will die,” Moore said.

“We spoke to thousands of people as part of the development of our late night economy policy and soon to be released cultural policy and one of the main things people wanted was more live music venues in Sydney.  We need to discuss the complex problems highlighted in this plan to revive live music in Sydney while looking after the needs of everyone involved, including local residents.”

A 2011 Ernest & Young report found that NSW was responsible for the largest (32%) sector of the $2.21 billion turned over by the Australian venue-based live sector, and that NSW contributed 4,794 full-time-equivalent jobs. The Taskforce reported that of the 143 APRA|AMCOS  live-music-licensed venues in the City of Sydney in 2012, 61 of these (43%) reported expenditure or box office receipts of up to $10,000, 63 (41%) reported between $10,000 and $100,000, and 19 (13%) reported $100,000+.  Over a nine year period, there was a 61% decline in live music listings, from 540 in 2004 to 213 in the same period in 2013.

The Taskforce also included Kerri Glasscock, co-founder of original underground music and performance space 505 in Surry Hills; Frank Henry a lead officer in the development of the harmony plan for Brisbane’s entertainment precinct Fortitude Valley;  Monash University associate professor Shane Homan and a leading authorities on live music regulation; Music Council of Australia’s Music in Communities Network’s manager Alex Masso; Paul Nicolaou; APRA’s head of corporate services Dean Ormston; University of Melbourne academic and alternative cultures expert Dr Kate Shaw; Dr Ianto Ware, co-director of the National Live Music Office and National Live Music Coordinator for Sounds Australia, Sydney radio FBi GM Dan Zilber and jazz musician Jonathan Zwartz.

“Our cities are driven by creative people and small businesses, and this is one of the first honest attempts to clear the bureaucratic minefield that’s held us back for so long,” Dr Ware concluded. “It’s the first serious attempt to actually fix the labyrinth of red tape affecting music and arts venues.”