Comment by pixelesque
2 hours ago
> 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.
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.
There's a venue in NZ called "San Fran" ? That's pretty cool
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.
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.
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.
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