Hey, it’s Joe — again. This is not an announcement I was expecting to write. SydneyMusic is back, with a little help from our community.

A lot has happened since we announced our imminent closure, followed by a four week extension.

Right from the moment we said we couldn’t afford to continue, we had a lot of people asking how they could help. Thank you to everyone who’s made contact, shared stories about how much the project has meant to you, and offered assistance in any way possible. 

You, our readers, really showed up for us: last month we exceeded our best month of one-off donations by +67%. And that’s after we’d announced we were shutting down!

When we announced our closure, on a recurring monthly basis our community covered 12.4% of our minimum viable budget — this was outside of one-off donations and other revenue like merch, both of which are harder to predict. Recurring revenue is the most reliable basis from which to make plans and budget.

We are now confident that we have secured monthly recurring revenue of 55.3% of that minimum budget.

A significant part of this turnaround has been made possible by RØDE, who reached out shortly after the announcement. They have pledged to fund a portion of our monthly budget for the next 2 years and will be on board as a core sponsor for this next era of SydneyMusic. We’re incredibly grateful and excited to have them on board.

We’re also delighted to announce that Heaps Normal also reached out, said “What can we do?”, and are making a significant contribution to boost our resources at this crucial point.

These partnerships are something that we’ve considered seriously. Having sponsors is new territory for us, and it’s important to us that our founding principles remain intact. We are really privileged to be working with these two locally headquartered companies as we define how we will implement sponsorship; we know they hold strong community values and are excited to see music in every corner of Sydney thrive.

This puts us in a position where we have more reliable foundations, which gives us confidence to give this another try. The SydneyMusic team will be spending the next few weeks building a funding model based on these developments to secure our future and ensure that this has a real chance of sticking (so that we can all get off this emotional rollercoaster).

There is much more to say – many thoughts that have stemmed from emails, DMs, phone calls, meals, tech demos, coffees, beers, chats at gigs. We’re so bloody excited by the thoughtfulness and energy we’ve heard from people wanting to solve the many challenges facing live music in Sydney.

Gig guides are important. They are critical infrastructure – whoever maintains them, however they are sustained. Our grassroots cannot thrive if it can’t be found. Discoverability needs to be a key consideration as we figure out how to solve the problem of sustainability in the arts. 

So: Sydney’s most comprehensive gig guide is back and firing on all cylinders – our researchers are out finding gigs, responding to your submissions, and checking the guide for accuracy. Let’s go see some shows.

Want to help us on this journey?

We would appreciate your support – please consider becoming a monthly supporter for as little as $2 a month (and it’s tax deductible).

If you'd like to discuss sponsorship as we develop our model, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at sponsorships@sydneymusic.net.