Let 9 February 2021 go down in history as the date Sydney finally became what it has long aspired to be: a global city.
It won’t happen overnight, of course – lingering, sensible Covid restrictions and six years of nightlife decimation will somewhat stifle the comeback.
But the ground is set for Australia’s biggest city to compete on the world stage again as the last of Sydney’s residual lockout laws are lifted from its once thriving, buzzy and grimy hub: Kings Cross.
Venues can stay open past 1:30am. Last drinks will be at 3:30am. You can have a shot or a cheap cocktail after midnight in an actual glass. Responsible service of alcohol marshals (or sometimes, uniformed police) will no longer watch your every move and eject you if you look or sound even slightly tipsy.
The independent MP for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, best summed up the buoyant mood that’ll no doubt be shared among the city’s embattled musicians, artists, performers, hospitality workers, business owners, night owls, bohemians and hedonists: “Global cities don’t tell people when to go to sleep, they help them have a fun and safe night.”
The lockout laws were always a curious outlier to the agenda of the New South Wales Coalition government: pro-business and anti nanny-statism.
Nobody wants a return to the appalling conditions which ignited their introduction: alcohol-fuelled violence, perpetrated by a minority of idiotic, beer-guzzling males. Nobody wants a family to go through the unthinkable tragedy the family of Thomas Kelly did ever again.
The Band-Aid, though, could only be kept on so long before the harder work of cultural change needed to begin. That’s a broader conversation Australia needs to have with its men about toxic masculinity and violence.
Because we can do so much better.
Australian cities consistently get voted as the world’s most liveable. They’re already so attractive ... in daylight hours.
Sydney was getting an international reputation for being boring after dusk.
Even my London-based friends would ask about the lockout laws. Rarely has state-based legislation caused such international waves.
There were flashes, under the draconian laws, of Sydney becoming a global city. But those green shoots always wilted as the 1:30am curfew bit.
I felt it myself. Wanting to bring Sydney’s vibrant musical theatre-loving community together in a New York-style piano night, I ran an annual communal show tunes singalong night called Sing Out, Louise. Two pianists from New York’s famous piano bar, Marie’s Crisis, flew in to play at the event. It was embarrassing, after they’d travelled all that way, to watch the venue empty just after 1am – the same time Marie’s gets going in NYC. The year we took the event to the Melbourne festival, the rambunctiousness upped a level – and everyone knew why.
Global cities should sound like the lyrics to Evita’s Buenos Aries: “Fill me up with your heat, with your noise, with your dirt, overdo me / Let me dance to your beat, make it loud, let it hurt, run it through me.”
Dirt, heat, noise, loudness, dancing: these are vivacious city wonders. Not a sanitised, soulless and soporific extension of suburbia, where noise complaints to a Kings Cross bar at 9:30pm(!) during a major festival successfully shut down gigs.
There were other embarrassments. Madonna couldn’t join her dancers at her own Rebel Heart tour after-party because she arrived at the Ivy after 1:30am. Stories like this travelled around the world and gave the city an image Sydneysiders often cringed at.
Creativity, nonetheless, often flourishes in the margins of an oppressive environment. Artist collective Wowser Nation produced some of the country’s funniest artwork satirising Sydney’s over-regulated state – installed around the city with defiant chutzpah and guerrilla tactics. “It’s very telling people are convinced they’re real” they told me.
Then there are the activists who long pushed for this, such as the leader of Keep Sydney Open, Tyson Koh, who must feel vindicated.
Sydney became a nightmare in need of a night mayor: someone who can transform us into a truly global city. Fortunately, deputy lord mayor Jess Scully is stepping up to the plate here, and now her nighttime economy enthusiasm can boom. It’s time for the 20s to roar again.
From the remnants of this pub and nightclub graveyard, opportunities for regrowth will spring.
As Greenwich says in a nod to the gentrification that has occurred in Kings Cross: “The 24-hour beer barns are gone, and a more sophisticated dining, small bar and entertainment offering is ready to thrive.”
We saw that when Sydney’s slightly weary gay scene was rejuvenated with fresh verve upon the relaxing, a year ago, of lockout restrictions in the CBD and on Oxford Street. Suddenly, Sydney had an unprecedented three bustling nightclub options on Saturday night: Poof Doof, Universal and ARQ. It felt, frankly, like a well-deserved reward after being punished for a problem mostly perpetrated by straight men. Then Covid hit and, well, you know the rest. ARQ is yet to reopen.
When it opens, like those small bars and cocktail lounges do in Kings Cross, we’ll raise a glass and christen the world’s newest global city. Here she is, boys. Here she is, world. Here’s Sydney.
• Gary Nunn is a regular Guardian contributor. Twitter: @garynunn1
