The 'heartfelt' spaces drawing crowds away from traditional music venues

More grants for struggling live music venues in NSW as audiences flock to DIY shows In short: The NSW government has allocated a fresh round of grants to 33 struggling live music venues across the state. The owner of an inner-west Sydney venue has welcomed the funding boost, saying making money from the bar is getting harder. The funding comes as DIY shows held in alternative venues such as skate parks and boxing rings are rising in popularity. Craig Pieterson has been welcoming nearly 70 musicians a week into his Marrickville venue Lazybones Lounge for more than 13 years. But with dwindling alcohol sales and rising costs, the model his cosy music bar is built on is not working like it used to. "Everyone's doing it tough. I make more money on the door occasionally than I do over the bar and we've never seen that,"Mr Pieterson said. He said while audiences were still engaging with music, without bar spend to offset costs, the numbers did not add up. "It's the bills that kills it," he said. Mr Pieterson is one of 33 recipients of a third round of New South Wales government grants aimed at propping up struggling venues following a spate of recent closures, including the nearby Moshpit Bar, Lazy Thinking and Mary's Underground. "We're investing in the core music venues, venues that are playing five or six nights a week," Music and Night-time Economy Minister John Graham said. "They're the ones employing musicians." The venues, located across the state, will receive a share of $3.8 million for upgrades like soundproofing, new equipment, lighting and LED screens. Focusing on screen and lighting, the government said, would help venues provide "compelling audiovisual experiences" to counter the competition from streaming, social media and other new media. "For me to be better at providing a product that is of high-end world class, that's the only way I'd be able to achieve it," Mr Pieterson said. Growth of 'DIY' shows But while traditional venues have been fighting to keep the lights on, bands performing in skate parks, backyards, warehouses and boxing gyms have been attracting enviable crowds. The so-called "DIY" shows require a space and audience, and everything else is left up to the creativity of organisers. They may or may not be ticketed, are often advertised through word of mouth or social media, and usually do not serve alcohol. At a DIY event in Marrickville, musicians performed in a boxing ring, and at another in Sydenham, the audience sat on the edges of a skate park while bands played inside the bowl. At one event over the weekend, people danced around a giant egg in an Eveleigh warehouse. One of the organisers, artist EJ Son, said the idea was born out of a chance meeting with fellow organiser and musician Grace Barr at an Ashfield sauna. The pair spent two weeks recruiting other artists and musicians to help, borrowing sound equipment from friends, designing a line-up and installing two key artworks in the room. "When it's just DIY with artists, there's a bit of an understanding of the need to be spontaneous and it's really special,"EJ Son said. They have access to the space through an artist residency that is coming to an end, and while they were not exactly advertising the gig to owners, the potential for something "cool" was too tempting. "I've got nothing to lose and it just needs to happen," they said. Barr, who is a banjo player and singer, said getting consistent gigs had been difficult in Sydney. "I think it is getting harder to find regular shows with venues that are able to offer a fee," Barr said. While DIY gigs generally do not pay musicians, Barr said it was a chance to play in a less structured way instead of regimented sets. "Maybe I want to experiment with playing for 30 minutes and then having a pause, and then someone's going to do a tap dance or someone's going to do a tap dance," the musician said. "Which I think curators are interested in, but you don't have to ask for permission with a DIY show." Changing needs of audiences Joe Hardy has been paying close attention to the DIY scene as part of his work as the co-founder of popular gig-guide SydneyMusic.Net. He attributes much of the success of DIY shows to their creativity and sense of community. "I think DIY is a lot more open-ended, and probably a lot more open-hearted as well, and I think that's what people are responding to and why the audiences are building at such a rate," Mr Hardy said. He said amid prolonged challenging conditions for venue owners, many have failed to remain attentive to changing audience sentiment. "People talk a lot about reduction in drinking, but I actually think it's more nuanced and complex than that. "People have different ideas around what they want to feel in terms of belonging in a space." That can boil down to simple decisions like where people will sit and stand, where performers are positioned in a room, what hospitality is offered to attendees and how long people are invited to stay after the music ends. "The number of occasions where we see people really doing very heartfelt and very accommodating, and warm hosting of people in their spaces, and that really changes the dynamics."