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When travellers asked Ya\u011fmur Ilkyaz what her home city was like during a solo trip through Europe last year, she found herself repeating the same melancholic line. \u201cI love Sydney. The beaches are great, but there\u2019s just nothing on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I would come back to Sydney from travelling, I would be so depressed,\u201d the 27-year-old marketing specialist and social media content creator says. \u201cI\u2019d be like, \u2018Oh my God. I\u2019m back here. Nightlife is dead. People aren\u2019t outside.\u2019 I just wanted to get over that feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
So to ease \u201cthat feeling\u201d, Ilkyaz began uploading weekly gig guide videos to a social media account in January and used her own refrain as inspiration for its name: Nothing on in Sydney<\/em>.<\/p>\n\nYa\u011fmur Ilkyaz, of Nothing on in Sydney, in the disco-themed bathrooms of Disco Pantera.<\/span>Audrey Richardson<\/span><\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOn a warm autumn Saturday night, the Herald<\/em> went to a gig with Ilkyaz that she listed at the top of her guide. \u201cSomeone once told me that all my events are baddie events,\u201d the 27-year-old says en route to an SES Radio event at Disco Pantera in Circular Quay. She wears an effortlessly cool plunging black camisole and leather knee-high boots. Her bangles clink like chimes each time she moves.<\/p>\nFrom inside a sea of swaying shoulders dancing to R&B and hip-hop, it\u2019s difficult to conceive of Sydney as a no-party city. But on the trek to the club two weekends ago, the city exposed only its bones. Tourists holding Louis Vuitton shopping bags explored mostly barren CBD streets, while buskers and religious preachers filled the downtown with noise. <\/strong>Its heart remained hidden.<\/p>\nAcross Sydney, hundreds of live music events \u2013 ranging from techno to R&B, punk to reggaeton \u2013 are relished by thousands in warehouses, pubs, bars and clubs. The problem? Only people in the \u201cknow\u201d know what\u2019s happening and where to find it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Lockout laws in 2014 shattered the messy (and sometimes red-hot) nightclub strips in Kings Cross that came to define Sydney\u2019s nightlife. Despite the abolition of those laws, the mechanics behind our city\u2019s nightlife remain fundamentally rewired \u2013 much has moved underground, gigs are often at sporadic events rather than established venues, and they get little mainstream attention.<\/p>\n\nA DJ at the Lord Gladstone in Chippendale. <\/span>Audrey Richardson<\/span><\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u2018Sydney has been thirsting for something to do\u2019<\/h3>\n There\u2019s no shortage of gig guides. If you search \u201cwhat\u2019s on in Sydney\u201d you will see dozens of lists compiled by government agencies, media organisations and creative bodies. This is in addition to a plethora of newsletters offering guides curated by record labels, event organisations and venues.<\/p>\n
But these online listings, predominantly curated by institutions and algorithms, feel \u201cstrangled\u201d, says rock journalist Mark Mordue.<\/p>\n
Mordue, 66, began writing for On the Street<\/i> magazine in the thick of Sydney\u2019s pub-rock golden era, when free \u201cstreet press\u201d magazines contained pages of gig listings for the week, spanning the city. In the \u201990s, he was working for Drum Media.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cIn the \u201980s and \u201990s, and it carried on well into the 2000s … there was a kind of random sensibility going on,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cWhere, when you stare at a page or a couple of pages, things jump out at you that have nothing to do with bands that you\u2019re interested in, but have to do with artwork, that have that to do with the way a name is written, that have to do with the name itself, and venue, and venue character as much as the bands too \u2013 because certain venues had certain characteristics to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\nGig guides in the pages of the free On the Street publication from the 1990s.<\/span>Audrey Richardson<\/span><\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThose highly influential print guides are gone. But community-led online gig guides are a new and growing front, collated by passionate individuals operating independently, listing events that host local, budding artists who commercial guides might miss.<\/p>\n
Ilkyaz, who has gained thousands of followers across platforms in the past five months, says she feels \u201clike Sydney has been thirsting \u2026 for something to do\u201d.<\/p>\n