Today was the day of the Keep Sydney Open rally, a day where it was up to the Sydney public to show their increasing dissatisfaction with the current lockout laws that continue to decimate Sydney’s nightlife and live music scene. Whilst numbers were expected to be pretty big, the turnout that the city saw today was beyond anyone’s expectations.
It’s expected that over 15,000 people were in attendance for the march, as well as the speeches and live performances afterwards. Not even rain could turn the crowds away, and it wasn’t just your average punters that were in the ranks either. The likes of Flight Facilities, Nina Las Vegas, Flume, Touch Sensitive and more were amongst the 15,000 strong crowd. Meeting at Belmore Park near Sydney’s Central Station, the crowd worked its way through the CBD as a bittersweet tribute to the venues and businesses that have already fallen victim to the lockout laws, and the ones who look set to close up next.
Check out our full photo gallery of the rally here
After the march, punters heard Nina Las Vegas, Izzi Manfredi from The Preatures and more give speeches, whilst the likes of Art Vs Science and Royal Headache, both staples in the Sydney music scene, treated the crowd to stellar performances.
Art Vs Science even hit the nail on the head with a cover of The Beastie Boys‘ (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right.
.@artvsscience: "You gotta fight for your right to partyyyyyyy." Crowd goes nuts #KeepSydneyOpen pic.twitter.com/08k9flIwb3
— Vanessa Lawrence (@nesslawrence) February 21, 2016
Stay posted for more photos of the day, and pat yourselves on the back if you were a part of the rally today. Let’s just hope that NSW Premier Mike Baird, and by extension QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk who has just passed laws of her own, hear the message and begin to take the progressive and necessary steps to rectify these mistakes.
Image: Music Feeds