Public hearing of the NSW #musicinquiry continues today

The latest public hearing of the NSW #musicinquiry about the crisis facing the Sydney live music continues today.

The session begins at 2 pm in the Jubilee Room at NSW parliament in Macquarie St, Sydney.

Longtime champion of Sydney’s live music venues, Darcy Byrne, mayor of the Inner West Council, kicks the proceedings off, talking about the proposed Sydenham Station Creative Hub.

The plan is for changes to the current planning controls to allow a 20-hectare entertainment and employment precinct in an industrial zone where live music venues, small bars, restaurants and cafés exist alongside traditional and creative industries include media, advertising, fine arts and craft, design, film and television, music, publishing, performing arts, cultural heritage institutions.

AMP Capital will speak about the future of The Basement, which it owns and which went through an operator change after an apparent drop in trade.

Isabella Manfredi from The Preatures, and Nick Drabble and Stuart Turner from Set Mo, will reveal how hard it is for musicians to find work as venues have collapsed.

According to John Graham, head of Labor Loves Live Music, 176 venues have been lost since the lockout laws were introduced.

He despaired that of the 25 recommendations from the night time economy task force, only five had been introduced by the NSW government.

The schedule for this afternoon is:

2 pm – Inner West Council’s mayor Darcy Byrne; its group manager of community services and culture Erla Ronan; and its strategic planning group manager David Birds.

2:30 pm – Commercial Radio Australia’s CEO Joan Warner, and head of legal and regulatory affairs Sarah Kruger.

3 pm – Mark Walton, assistant commissioner, NSW Police

3:30 pm – Isabella Manfredi, The Preatures and Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) CEO Dan Rosen.

4 pm – Luke Briscoe, managing director, office and industrial, AMP Capital

4:45 pm – Helen Marcou, Save Live Australian Music (SLAM).

5:15 pm – Jane Slingo, executive producer, Electronic Music Conference and Nicholas Drabbie and Stuart Turner of Set Mo.

5:45 pm – Penelope Benton, GM, National Association for the Visual Arts.

Last Friday, as reported in TMN, the state government announced a lift on the freeze of new licences for low-risk music venues in Kings Cross and the Sydney central business district.

Earlier last week, after a public backlash against the sale and demolition of the Four In Hand, Woollahra Council unanimously voted to put the historic pub forward for heritage listing.

Additionally, the plan to auction off the site was pulled and change to expressions of interest.