There May Be Hope For Sydney Nightlife Yet

In April this year, an infamous TikTok was created that sent shivers of disbelief and despair down the back of Sydneysiders everywhere. We got a taste of Berlin’s nightlife in Sydney’s CBD, reads the robotic tone of TikTok’s text to speech function The video? Imagery captured at The Ivy’s Lost Sundays party. Then, a sinking depression: is this really as good as it gets?

I don’t want to seem like a wanker (too late, perhaps) but of course there is more to Sydney than Justin Hemmes’ Build-A-Pub midlife crisis. There is a distinct dissonance between a party held at a sanitised Merivale venue and a club in the epicentre of the techno revolution. But this video sparked a trend, with people replicating the video using the lacklustre dance floors Sydney is known for. While it was amusing, it also felt pretty bleak, too.

Sydney’s nightlife has been trying to breath under a wet blanket for a long time. In 2014, lockout laws were introduced by the O’Farrell government (who?) - a class detention to combat the rising number of one-punch killings in Kings Cross. While it was effective in causing non-domestic assaults to decrease by 53% (awesome), this number probably had something to do with the fact that 500,000 fewer young people had visited the city since the introduction of the laws, razing the city’s nightlife. 

There are some signs of life. Sydney institution, The Abercrombie, which had been hibernating for the duration of the laws, is returning with a vengeance pre-Christmas, armed with a 24 hour licence and a 36 hour kick off party headed by dancefloor darlings Mike Who, Ayebatonye, Andy Garvey and Dameeeela. Club 77, a 25 year old establishment of Sydney nightlife has extended its trading hours to 5pm-4am, 7 days. The Bridge, a beer soaked pub in Rozelle, has become an unlikely staple for the Sydney dance scene due to its 24 hour laws. 

And as always happens, it is the people that have to push the culture forward and the government that drags their feet. Local dance music collectives, like Velodrome, Douglas St, Athletica and Lovejoy, have (impressively) managed to be both born and thrive under the lockout laws, despite the chokehold restrictions have had on the city. The importance of these groups, providing a platform for fresh faces to cut their teeth and bring international acts to Sydney, proves the quiet power and resilience of the underground.

Perhaps it’s the chronic summer optimism, or the abundance of events upcoming, but there seems to be hope for Sydney’s nightlife yet.

Least of all, there’s places to go. 

While I don’t think that you’ll ever be able to find a taste of Berlin’s nightlife in Sydney, I think that’s probably a good thing. It’s nice to feel that with community determination, and some more relaxed laws, that this scene can breathe again. A melting pot of people being able to enter a pub for the first time past 1:30a.m. and others being able to relive the glory days. 

Did it take a health crisis for the government to realise we needed a nightlife again? Keep Sydney Open largely failed, right? But a pandemic… now that’s something!