27 September 2024
Labor’s plan to further enhance Canberra’s night-time economy 

Labor will enact further regulatory reforms and fee-reductions to ensure Canberrans and visitors have more opportunities to enjoy our city and town centres at night. 

Already we have made significant commitments to support our growing night-time economy. This includes a new 2,000-seat lyric theatre as part of the Canberra Theatre transformation and an 8,000-seat venue for live music and entertainment as part of the Canberra Convention and Entertainment Centre precinct. 

We know that a thriving nightlife in Canberra relies on our local venues and hospitality businesses. These are the places that attract visitors and give local artists and musicians the opportunity to work and contribute to Canberra’s nightlife.

If re-elected, Labor will back our local small to medium venues that support and showcase artists across the city by extending a 50 per cent liquor fee reduction to venues up to 350-person capacity.

Labor will also back our smaller cafes and restaurants by providing an automatic 50 per cent liquor fee reduction for venues up to 150–person capacity, extending the current initiative for venues up to 80-person capacity. 

This will save our valued local businesses up to around $3800 per year and will encourage more businesses to open.

To better connect artists and venues to take advantage of this scheme, Labor will also build an artist registry to help owners and managers to book local artists and musicians for their venue. 

We will encourage more events in Canberra through a new plan to make more additional public areas available to event organisers. This plan will identify suitable sites for markets, busking, food trucks and other activities, while improving access and guidance for event approvals.

Following the establishment of the City Centre Entertainment Precinct with fit-for-purpose noise standards, Labor will also examine our town centres and other areas across the ACT that are suitable to be defined as entertainment precincts. This will support more hospitality venues businesses and expand Canberra’s nightlife across the Territory.

It’s all part of our plan for the Canberra you love, but better.

You can find Labor's Night Time Economy Plan here.

Quote attributable to AHA General Manager, Chris Gatfield
 
“This is a clear statement of intent from ACT Labor that the night-time economy matters.
 
“Our industry is always looking to support local musos, artists and creatives, and these licence fee reductions for medium sized venues will encourage more live entertainment in more venues more often.  Rolling out the Entertainment Precinct model out to other areas will hopefully put an end to the age-old sport of moving next door to an established venue and complaining until they turn the music down or shut down entirely. 
 
“This reform package is a fantastic step towards enhancing the night-time offerings across our city and is fully supported by AHA ACT.”

Statement ends

Media contact:
Kaarin Dynon    0422 772 215   [email protected]