> Live performance revenue reached $329 million, well above pre-Covid levels.
Is that inflation-adjusted? And as the article points out, very little of that is local talent, so it's likely some of that's due to the cost of tickets.
As someone who lived in NZ (although Wellington) for 10 years until last year, the local music scene was there, but at least in Wellington, the change in the 10 years I was there was considerable: The earthquake in 2016 progressively caused several venues on Cuba Street to close due to building regulations, and Covid was a significant shock as well, with some of the smaller (although most places in Wellington were small!) gig rooms / bars / breweries that would often host bands closing.
There was still Valhalla, San Fran, The Rogue & Vagabond and others, but it just didn't feel as much was going on other than for things like Cuba Dupa street festival, etc, or the Jazz weekends that would be held.
As the article points out, this is not localised to NZ, it's happening in Australia and the UK as well in terms of venues/pubs closing and live music not being quite the draw it once was because of that.
Yep, here in Oz (Victoria) the scene is struggling. You see some glimpses trying to keep it going but it is rare.
Sometimes it feels like all we have is King Gizzard occasionally and then nothing but DJ's and cover bands to fill the gaps at the local RSL. Places like The Croxton still put on a great spread however.
It has been about 8 years since I was last in Wellington, it seemed to still have some stuff going for it but it was also clear that the decline was setting in.
Strong disagree. There are many venues playing local bands in Melbourne all the time. The Retreat, the Corner Hotel, Workers Club, the Esplanade, Northcote Social and Northcote Theatre, Billboards.
I can't speak to what the scene was like 10 years ago, but to say that its rare feels very wrong to me.
I think the difference might be that, whilst there is still a fair bit on offer if you look closely enough, you now have to look closely enough rather than just being able to stumble upon it.
Same as the 'modern music sucks' argument. Great modern music is there if you do the work, but if you're passive you'll only get the clones of what was popular (via payola) yesterday.
Yeah fair call. I think it is just the vision looking back on what it used to be like.
Same for electronic music in Australia - well off context here but fora such as spraci, ITM, and then its sibling FL were great for discovering and connecting with new music and people.
Praise be to King Gizzard!
I think the revenue number needs a lot more context for exactly this reason
There's a venue in NZ called "San Fran" ? That's pretty cool
San Fran, who turned out to be a man
Flo had to go, I couldn't go with the flow
First it was a massage/sauna place called The San Francisco Bathhouse, and then it kept that name when it turned to a live venue. Now it is just San Fran.
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No idea how it looked in New Zealand, but after covid "ended"* there were a lot of people who simply wanted to go out - after spending so much time indoors.
I suspect that people went out more in 2023-2025, but then they reversed to the mean + economic impacts (of money printing everywhere) hit.
* by the way, did covid officially ever end? the new variants seem to be still there, but it just stopped being covered by media after Russia invaded Ukraine)
In the US deaths peaked at >450k in 2021 and then fell <80k in 2023. They have roughly halved each year since (on track for ~10k this year. There are about 30-40k deaths each year due to influenza so this isn't really news any more.
Most everyone is vaccinated except the young who seem to have relatively mild infections. Of course there are probably excess cardiac deaths due to immune response, but that's even smaller and much more difficult to measure or determine cause for.
Did the US reach 450k deaths in a single year? Wow, and there are still those who call it a hoax?
Nothing much to be done about those who refuse free education I guess. I also figure they just have less empathy for their families.
New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries, but other than people with health problems I see no signs that people aren't going out any more due to Covid.
However due to other reasons people definitely have less money for discretionary activities, especially the youth.
And no, Covid never ended. It's still here, it's still killing and disabling people, but due to vaccines and antivirals it's less prevalent than it was.
What? NZ had one of the strictest, most prolonged and most extreme lockdown regimes in the world. Especially Auckland.
NZ had very strong lockdown but once the country had zero covid there were months of no lockdowns at all.
Other countries had longer lockdowns or even when they didn't people were not going to concerts etc.
Not really.
The international border quarantine was quite extreme, but the rest of the country was (mostly) business as normal.
Yeah, we had a very strict initial lockdown, and closed the border, once the number of cases went to 0 we opened up again, we then had regional lockdowns after cases broke the border quarantine.
I’m guessing you weren’t in Auckland?
You Aucklanders are still really hung up on that extra lockdown you got because Delta turned up.
As in, the most lethal variant of Covid.
But never mind that, it was bad for the local economy, right? You know what's worse? Excessive deaths due to Delta.
Our level 4 lockdown was scored at 95/100 ("extreme") by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker. Our border lockdowns and MIQ system were extreme and very prolonged stretching into 2022 and even impacted returning citizens.
Our level 4 lockdown didn't last very long.
The strictness index (which is what I'm assuming you're referring to) varied over time as the response changed.
The claim I was initially responding to was, "New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries". Not specifically length. NZ lockdown was especially strict in some regards (level 4, border lockdown) and especially prolonged in others (Auckland lockdown, border and MIQ).
The claim meant less time. The lockdown periods in NZ were very short. That's because they actually worked.
we just locked down quick and strict, we then were one of the only places you could go about life relatively normally without too much worry while the rest of the world went through comparatively ineffective lock downs and rrestrictions.
I hear people describe their lockdowns and how difficult shopping was, and work, and seeing friends.
That ceased in Auckland, and was policed hard, it was very aggressive.
And the worst part of our 7 day lockdown? The first 3 months.
In New Zealand there were only a few weeks of lockdown followed by much time when people could go out without any fear.
COVID never ended (we chose that). The pandemic turned to an endemic, which is a way of saying that the plan is now natural selection, as everyone will get infected (most people already have been). The death rates have somewhat reduced, but not to the extent that it's as harmless as the cold. Essentially it's now a particularly nastseasonal flu strain. If you're vaccinated, no you aren't, because COVID mutates as fast as any other flu and you last got vaccinated for it years ago.
Auckland was locked down for months
Initially it was locked down the same as the rest of NZ. And then it got locked down again a few months after the initial lockdowns, due to a Delta outbreak, the most lethal variant of Covid.
It wasn't locked down for months on end while the rest of NZ was having fun in the sun, it was locked down the same as the rest of us initially, then it wasn't, then it was locked down again because a strain with a high lethality was present in the city. That strain was first detected in a rest home where it killed multiple elderly people.
The second lockdown wasn't for shits and giggles.
I really struggle to understand why Aucklanders don't understand this, and fixate on "We were locked down for months, unlike the rest of New Zealand, and it was really bad for our local economy" when the second lockdown was to save lives in Auckland and the lives of other Kiwis, because if it had spread from Auckland, there would have been plenty more dead Grandmas around the motu.