Chapter one — the squeeze
Where we are in the argument · Diagnosis. Chapter two moves to the structural fixes.
The economics are broken. But the real cost isn't financial. It's the thing that happens to a community when its third spaces disappear one by one, and nobody has a word for it until they're gone.
01 — The third space problem
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the phrase "third space" in 1989: the places that aren't home and aren't work, where people gather freely, where community actually forms. For a huge proportion of people who don't feel at home in mainstream social settings, the local music venue has always been exactly that.
When you lose that, you don't just lose a gig venue. You lose the room where people first realised they weren't alone. Live music venues are the canary here, not because the problem is unique to them, but because their margins had the least room to absorb a shock hitting the entire night economy at once.
The detail: ATARANGI on culture transmission, and the communities Neck of the Woods specifically held.
ATARANGI, the Auckland DJ and producer now based in Melbourne, said it clearly in the wake of the Neck of the Woods crisis: "The internet isn't a place for culture transmission in the way that the club is." She described how NYMPHO, the queer club night that called Neck of the Woods home, brought together a generation of artists who met during lockdown, online, and found each other properly on a dance floor. "If we keep losing third spaces like Neck of the Woods that are so vital, there's gonna be nowhere to go, and then all of the creativity and all of the most meaningful parts of what make Auckland so special are gonna just turn to shit."
Neck of the Woods was not just a music venue. It was where NYMPHO held its sold-out nights for the queer community. Where FILTH, a collective prioritising nightlife for QTBIPOC people, found a home. Where CHURCH built safe and inclusive space for queer people and their allies. It employed a high proportion of women and queer staff. Its Safe & Sound policy (zero tolerance for racist, transphobic, homophobic, sexist, ableist, fatphobic and ageist behaviour) was taken seriously by every person who worked there, from bar staff to management. For many people in Auckland, it was one of the only spaces where they could exist without managing themselves constantly.
"I cannot imagine achieving the success I have in music without Neck of the Woods. They provide a crucial space that nurtures creatives and makes putting on events accessible to up-and-coming artists."
Playing your first set at Neck of the Woods is understood in Auckland's music community as a rite of passage. The Beths played there before they became one of New Zealand's most internationally recognised bands. Ninajirachi played a special show there before she became one of Australia's most in-demand producers. The venue's programming, always eclectic, always genuinely committed to new and emerging artists, meant that on any given Thursday night, the person playing might have been doing it for the first time or the five hundredth.
Pixie Lane on what disappears with the room.
Pixie Lane, a George FM DJ who started her club night Disco Rally at Neck of the Woods, asked the question that keeps hanging in the air after every venue closure: "Losing a venue like this doesn't just hurt the local scene, it hurts the whole ecosystem. Neck of the Woods is where an artist actually gets the chance to grow before they ever reach a festival stage. If it's not there, then where will we foster our talent?"
03 — The bar take trap
The existing economics of most grassroots venues in Aotearoa, and in comparable markets around the world, depend heavily on bar revenue. In the years when alcohol spending was high and fixed costs were stable, it worked. In the current environment, it doesn't.
The Venue Project exists because something has to change, and because the tools to change it already exist.
Chlöe Swarbrick, NYMPHO's Kylie, and Martyn Pepperell on why this is structural, not a programming problem.
Chlöe Swarbrick, the Green Party co-leader who worked at Neck of the Woods when it first opened and DJed its final night, is unambiguous about the structural problem: "We currently have a music venue infrastructure, and therefore a cultural infrastructure, that is so dependent on alcohol sales, and obviously that then begs the question of all the other further problems down the track."
As more people choose sobriety, and as the cost of living squeezes discretionary spending across the board, bar takes are declining at the same time that rents, energy and labour costs are rising. NYMPHO's Kylie, who has run sold-out nights at Neck of the Woods for years, describes the economics of putting on live events: "We break even most of the time. It's extremely tight. We all have full-time jobs and don't have a lot of cash to spare anyway."
Journalist Martyn Pepperell, who has covered the New Zealand music industry closely, frames the underlying diagnosis well: "We need to rethink the finance model for live music venues and nightclubs. It's a mistake to look at them as hospitality offerings. In reality, they're closer to art galleries, theatres, museums and the like. These places are fundamentally a form of cultural infrastructure that helps to enrich our lives."
02 — The artist pipeline
Producer INNUSTA put it precisely: "Neck of the Woods is more than just a venue. It's a cornerstone of Auckland's underground music scene, and one of the few places where emerging musicians and artists can properly get their art in front of people. None of this happens by accident. It happens because people care enough about the music to keep showing up."
Fuzen Entertainment's director put it to RNZ: "Will they just make music in their bedroom and then step straight onto the stage at Spark Arena? It doesn't work that way." The grassroots room is where an artist plays their fifth show, their fiftieth, and their five-hundredth. No grassroots circuit, no arena pipeline.
04 — The monopoly squeeze
Live Nation's 2025 ANZ gross exceeded $312 million across more than 2.7 million tickets sold, more than double the next largest operator. The gap between that and a 200-cap venue needing a crowdfunder is not an accident of the market. It is the market. And it is the reason why waiting for the market to fix this is not a strategy.
Vertical integration, Team Event, and the Australian parliamentary diagnosis.
Live Nation's recent acquisition of festival producer Team Event, who run Electric Avenue (New Zealand's largest two-day music festival), continued a pattern of vertical integration that now sees multinational corporations control significant portions of the live music supply chain: venues, ticketing, promoters and festivals, all under one roof. An Australian parliamentary inquiry in 2024 called this "Amazonification". Meanwhile, Neck of the Woods generated economic and social value for its community every week for eleven years, and nearly closed because it couldn't carry debts that its community then cleared in a week.
Record 2025 revenue. Adjusted operating income up 10% to US$2.37B.
Australia and NZ gross revenue, 2.7M tickets sold in 2025. Acquired Team Event, adding to its Roundhouse and Greenstone portfolio.
Total revenue, 2025. Backed by US private equity firm Silver Lake.
05 — The economic case, quantified
A 2024 research project led by teams at Massey University and the University of Canterbury found that the live performance sector contributed at least $17.3 billion in social and economic value to New Zealand in the twelve months to June 30, 2024. For every dollar invested by the community in live performance, $3.20 was returned, in ticket revenue, food, transport, accommodation, childcare and the full night out built around a show.
IMVA's framing, and what music venues don't have that theatres, museums and galleries do.
Independent Music Venues Aotearoa put the equation simply in their public statement during the Neck of the Woods crisis: "Strong venues = a stronger NZ music ecosystem." But the venues generating this return are operating without the capital buffers, ownership security or structural funding that other forms of cultural infrastructure take for granted. Theatres have trusts. Museums have public funding. Art galleries have endowments. Music venues have bar tabs and prayer.