Death by a Thousand Closures
How WA Is Systematically Murdering Its Music Venues (and pretending it's not their fault)
Between 2010 and 2024, Greater Perth lost at least 28% of its dedicated live music rooms under 500 capacity. Let that sink in for a moment. More than one in four stages where emerging artists cut their teeth, build audiences, and develop their craft - gone. Bulldozed into oblivion or regulated out of existence.
Shutting down our stages.
We now have just 81 dedicated live music venues across all of Western Australia. That's one venue per 33,000 residents. As a comparison, Melbourne has one per 8,785 residents. Welcome to WA's venue apocalypse, where bureaucratic red tape meets developer greed to create the perfect storm for cultural destruction.
How to kill a music scene in three simple steps:
Step 1: Allow developers to build apartments next to existing venues that have been operating for years, sometimes decades (thanks LGAs and Planning Departments).
Step 2: Let new residents complain about noise from venues, because apparently doing personal due diligence on your own tolerance levels isn't required when buying property.
Step 3: Force venues to spend $120,000+ on soundproofing or shut down, because clearly the solution to poor urban planning is to punish the cultural infrastructure owners.
It's elegant in its simplicity. Build housing next to music venues, then blame the venues for existing. Very democratic. Very logical.
WA implemented a "non-statutory guideline" for agent-of-change in 2022, which sounds impressive until you realise it's about as legally enforceable as a suggestion box. So, venues still end up at the State Administrative Tribunal, exactly the scenario the guideline was supposedly designed to prevent. Besides which, only five local governments adopted it anyway.
Meanwhile, Victoria implemented enforceable agent-of-change laws in 2014 and London followed in 2018. Both report saving dozens of grassroots venues from exactly this kind of death-by-development scenario. But why learn from success when you can perfect failure? Why solve problems when you can just watch them get worse while wringing your hands about "complex regulatory issues"?
“Want to know what's really killing small venues? The cost of bringing a 200-seat room up to WA noise standards routinely exceeds $120,000. That's more than most small venues make in profit in a year - hell, that's more than some venues make in total revenue.”
Ironically, Sydney's Save Our Stages grants found that every public dollar spent on venue acoustics generated $16.70 in local economic activity. That's a 1,670% return on investment - better than any mining project, better than most property developments, better than basically anything else the government spends public funds on. But apparently, supporting venues that employ hundreds of people year-round is less important than subsidising fossil fuels. Because nothing says "future planning" like doubling down on yesterday's industries.
WA's liquor licensing system also treats small venues like criminal enterprises plotting against society. Unlike NSW's 2023 reform allowing single notifications for venues under 120 patrons, Perth venues still face costly reclassification processes that can take months and cost thousands of dollars. You know what message this sends to anyone thinking about opening a venue? "We don't want live music in WA." Mission accomplished, bureaucrats. You've successfully made starting a music venue about as appealing as performing surgery on yourself.
Let's talk about regional WA, where the situation goes from bad to "are you freaking kidding me?" 45% of our population lives in regional areas, but only 14% of ticketed gigs occur there. We have 14 regional music venues for 1.26 million people. Fourteen. That's fewer venues than some Melbourne suburbs. Go on. I dare you to do the per capita calculation… nice maths, huh?
And even with those venues, and with the few regional festivals that manage to sustain themselves, artists have to travel vast distances, often at a loss, to reach regional audiences. Many simply don't bother, because driving six hours to play for 50 people and lose money isn't most musicians' idea of career advancement. So regional communities get starved of live music while Perth gets oversaturated with acts competing for the same shrinking pool of stages.
But it gets even more rage-inducing. WA happily subsidises property developers through various tax breaks and planning incentives, then acts surprised when they build apartments next to live music venues and complain about noise. We literally pay developers to create conflicts with existing cultural infrastructure, then side with the developers when those conflicts arise.
Other places figured this out years ago:
Berlin spent €10 million on venue support and saved 85% of threatened venues - that's what we call problem-solving. London implemented agent-of-change laws that actually work and protect existing venues from development complaints.
NSW created $100,000 soundproofing subsidies and streamlined licensing for small venues, because they understand that venues are assets, not problems.
Toronto has municipal music venue protection bylaws, because they’ve figured out that culture is worth protecting.
Every venue closure ripples through the ecosystem. Artists lose performance opportunities and income, which means fewer people can make music their career. Sound engineers, bar staff, and security lose employment, because venues employ way more people than you'd think. Local businesses lose the foot traffic music venues generate - and yes, people do grab dinner before shows and drinks after. Communities lose cultural gathering spaces, which is fancy talk for "places where people actually meet each other instead of staring at screens." Young people lose alcohol-free spaces to experience live music, because all-ages shows are crucial for developing audiences and artists. When venues die, creative ecosystems collapse. But apparently, this is an acceptable casualty of urban development. Because lord knows we need another ugly apartment block…
The pandemic turbocharged venue closures like pouring gasoline on a fire. Many venues that had survived years of regulatory and developer pressure couldn't survive two years of lockdowns. The ones that reopened often cut programming from 5-6 nights to 3-4 nights per week, if that, which means fewer gigs for artists and less income for everyone involved. If we now compound these closures with rampant nimbyism, we’re going to lose even more opportunities for creative advancement in our state.
“So, here's a radical idea that might blow your mind. If you choose to move next to an existing music venue, you're responsible for managing your own noise issues, not the venue that was there first. What!?”
This is called agent-of-change, and it works everywhere it's properly implemented. The "agent" causing the change (new housing near existing venues) bears responsibility for managing the consequences. It's basic fairness - if you move next to a chicken farm, you don't get to eat the eggs but complain about the roosters.
Victoria's version includes legal enforceability in planning schemes, soundproofing grants for both venues and residents, clear protocols for dispute resolution, and protection for venues with established noise management. WA's version includes vague guidelines that councils can ignore, no funding for practical solutions, no enforcement mechanisms, and continued venue closures.
One of these approaches works. Guess which one WA chose? If you guessed "the one that doesn't work," congratulations on understanding our government's decision-making process.
$15 million over three years for acoustic retrofitting could save our remaining venues and future-proof them against noise complaints. That's less than Coldplay's one-night fee (that the government subsidised BTW), but it would protect dozens of venues employing hundreds of people year-round. As I mentioned previously, Sydney’s already proved the economics: $16.70 return for every dollar invested. Best ROI Everrrrr…
NSW allows low-impact entertainment notifications for venues under 120 capacity - one form, minimal cost, streamlined approval. WA could adapt this for venues up to 150 capacity, balancing "live venue and liveable community" outcomes. But that would require admitting that live music is actually good for communities, not a noise nuisance to be regulated into extinction.
“If WA can invest $20 million annually in community sports upgrades, why not $5 million annually to retrofit and protect grassroots stages? Sports are great, don't get me wrong, but are they truly worth that much more than protecting our culture? Really?”
The Pack crew think this is a pretty straightforward solution: $15 million over 3 years for acoustic retrofit funding, enforceable agent-of-change in all planning schemes, streamlined licensing for venues under 150 capacity, regional circuit development connecting regional centres, and green lane approvals for established venues.
It's not rocket science guys. It's the basic cultural infrastructure that every successful music city implements. The only complicated part is getting politicians to understand that culture isn't a luxury - it's essential infrastructure, like roads or power grids… or sports lighting...
WA is allowing its music ecosystem to atrophy through regulatory ennui, bureaucratic red tape, and funding priorities that favour concrete over creativity. We're racing to the cultural bottom while other cities race to the top, and then wondering why our talented creators leave.
We can continue this cultural suicide mission, or we can start treating music venues as essential infrastructure rather than necessary evils. The choice is ours. The solutions exist. The only question is whether we're brave enough to implement them before there's nothing left to save.
You can support the good humans who are actively trying to make space for our local, original, unsigned music community. Join The Pack today.