One-hour lunch concerts, big band nights and drag performances are among more than 40 local events funded to coincide with this month's New Annual festival through a post pandemic arts grant program.
City of Newcastle's 2023 Locally Made and Played program has been announced ahead of New Annual from September 22 to October 1, with dozens of live music gigs and performances delivered across 15 venues.
Recipients were awarded up to $1500 to stage live music, comedy or other performances, with all funding going to the artists.
Hamilton Station Hotel will use its grant to host a concert in its new band room called Free For All on September 30, featuring local artists Camino Gold, But Anyway, Butterknife, Grace Aberhart and Slapjack.
Hamilton Station Hotel head booking agent Spencer Scott said the grant would allow the venue to make the show free at a time of widespread low event ticket sales due to cost-of-living pressures.
"We rarely get to do free entry shows in this new room but due to the additional funding we can open the doors for everyone and put together this really awesome lineup that showcases some of Newcastle's best up-and-coming talent," he said.
"Ticket sales are tougher than they have been previously. Everything from local shows to festivals are kind of noticing the same thing. So a free entry show just allows us to increase our audience and we don't really want to lock anyone out or make live music inaccessible to people."
Members of four-piece band Butterknife, who will perform at Free For All, said the support was crucial to help artists continue performing.
"There's not really enough funding going into the music scene," band member Athena Christensen said.
"Don't get me wrong Newcastle is a very good starting point for musicians. But aside from say five or six venues around here, that's all we have in Newcastle and on top of that you don't get paid very well for the amount of time that goes into practising, doing set lists, doing the logistics of travelling.
"And especially for the audience when tickets are expensive, it's not very accessible for a lot of people," fellow Butterknife member Lilli Sullivan said.
"For the venues to pay us properly sometimes they have to run at a loss, so the grants are a huge help."
Chair of City of Newcastle's Community and Culture Advisory Committee councillor Carol Duncan said Newcastle had a "really healthy" live music and arts scene, which would be on show during New Annual.
"One of the wonderful things about new annual is that we have events that are free events, that are ticketed events, that are family friendly so that we can have something for everybody," Cr Duncan said.
"That creates further opportunities as well because people go out, they see something cool and maybe next time there will be something that they'd like to invest in and take their friends to."
For the full program visit newannual.com.
