The Newcastle-based organisers of the Groovin the Moo music festivals want to run a series of "pop-up" events next year in a Hamilton North industrial shed.
Cattleyard, the company behind the festival tour, has applied to Newcastle council for permission to run the monthly licensed events, which would include live music on consecutive Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
The venue is at 50 Clyde Street, an industrial estate and emerging arts precinct which already houses the Creator Incubator and PhonoLab record cutters.
Cattleyard would sell its own beer brand at the events, which could be held inside and outside the shed on the last weekend of every month, starting in February.
Its development application says the events would run from 5 to 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays and 4 to 9pm on Sundays.
The venue, using temporary infrastructure, would have a seated capacity of about 250 people, based on restrictions of one person per two square metres.
Company director and Groovin the Moo promoter Steve Halpin said he would not know until January whether the six-stop regional festival tour, which includes Maitland at the end of April, could go ahead next year.
"We're still working that out," he said. "We're still chatting to health departments. We're in six different states and territories."
He said the pop-up events were not "do-or-die" for Cattleyard, which employs eight permanent staff, about 20 employees on three- or four-month contracts and 500 people on festival days.
"This is one thing we'd like to get up to pay for our staff, basically," he said.
"If, for whatever reason, we're not allowed to do it, Groovin will still happen, eventually."
Cattleyard's development application says the events will give the company "the best possible chance to have a sustainable business model in this new reality that has been created by the COVID-19 pandemic".
"When COVID hit in mid-March, we were six weeks out from doing our first show on tour. Everything came to a grinding halt," Mr Halpin said.
"We were never able to get insurance for pandemics. We basically lost all that income and the costs associated.
"It had a big impact financially, plus emotionally a lot of energy and work goes into putting on an event. It's 12 months' work. To have it stopped six weeks before was quite devastating."
Mr Halpin said the Clyde Street "mini festivals" could feature different types of bands and DJs.
"There's no housing issues around there," he said. "It's an area that is changing. To introduce people to that kind of space works well."
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