Australian Clubs Close, Festivals Face More COVID-19 Upheavals

Fear of extended COVID-19 restrictions continued to wipe more events on the live music slate across Australia and New Zealand.

Australia’s largest free music festival, the 40-year old St Kilda Festival in Melbourne, which draws 450,000 each year, was pushed back from February 2021 to February 2022.

Loch Hart Music in Victoria, scheduled for Nov. 20-22 for its third year, was cancelled, a decision festival director Jayden Bath called “heart wrenching”.

Strawberry Fields in regional New South Wales (NSW) in late November was called off until 2021. Of its 8,000-strong audience, 84% come from Melbourne and Sydney, two virus hotspots. Director Tara Medina thought it irresponsible to bring potential carriers to the area.

More live music venues have shuttered. Alison Avron, owner of the Newsagency in Annandale, Sydney, was evicted after its landlord initially gave her rental relief and then offered a new lease almost double of what she paid.

Lost nightclub in Brisbane decided “it wouldn’t be worth it” to reopen after closing in March after COVID restrictions and put its lease on the market.

Independent Music New Zealand and the NZ Music Commission cancelled the annual Going Global Music Summit in September. It has speakers from the northern hemisphere advising on strategies to break international markets.