12 years of lockout laws come to an end tonight.
Getting turned away from a venue late at night is an experience that Sydney club goers and live-music enthusiasts have known all too well for the past 12 years. But as of today, it’s a thing of the past.
This all comes with the NSW state government announcing that they will tonight remove any last lockout laws that were still in place across Kings Cross, Oxford Street and the CBD, including the 3:30am ‘last drinks’ rule.
Music and the Night-time Economy Minister John Graham says he is “delighted to say goodbye to this chapter of Sydney’s nightlife story.”
“The lockouts had good intentions but a diabolical impact on the night-time economy and the reputation of our city. These were the laws that saw Madonna and Justin Bieber not allowed into their own afterparties, and the decimation of the club scene that spawned Rufus Du Sol and Flight Facilities,” he said.
NSW nightlife is now undergoing a revival, and live music is at the centre of it. More than 521 venues now enact extended trading hours for programming music.
The removal of these laws hopes to put a stop to the influx of music venues that have gone out of business in the last decade, and to bring much needed new life into Sydney’s too-often criticised live music and night life scene. At last!
