How to make Brisbane a true world city – 24 hours a day

What makes a city great is about more than what happens during the day.

The best international cities score their accolades by being places in which you can step out at either 3pm or 3am and find something happening. Think Berlin, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Barcelona and New York. A great city is rarely one that sticks to traditional hours of trade.

The best international cities have a reputation for more than what happens during the day.

As an emerging New World City, Brisbane is striving for that kind of international reputation. It’s an ambition that rests on political will as much as the city’s willingness to embrace new narratives about who we are and how we operate.

So what is the story we’re currently telling about our city at night?

Earlier this month, Labor lord mayoral candidate Tracey Price unveiled her party’s arts and nightlife policy with a view that Brisbane should no longer be seen as a “sleepy city”.

“We’re trying to make sure we bring our nightlife in our city and our suburbs to life,” she said, proposing cheaper late-night transport and support for more dining and entertainment outside normal business hours.

Greens mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan weighed in with similar proposals and a call for more funding for live music and performing arts.

The incumbent LNP administration and civic cabinet chair for community, arts and night-time economy, Vicki Howard, backed its past and ongoing efforts to balance competing priorities and the budget.

“We’ve worked with businesses to grow and enhance our traditional late-night precincts, like the CBD and Fortitude Valley,” Howard told me when I asked about Brisbane’s night-time economy.

“Through our vision and planning, we’ve also added a range of exciting new entertainment precincts to Brisbane, including Howard Smith Wharves, Fish Lane, South City Square and West Village.

Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley is integral to the city’s entertainment offering but its success can vary by day and night. Credit: Paul Harris

“We will continue to enhance our traditional entertainment precincts while identifying exciting new opportunities.”

It’s true that Howard Smith Wharves has been transformative for Brisbane and is now crucial to our identity. But other precincts, like Fortitude Valley on a bad night, show signs of fraying and becoming iconic for the wrong reasons.

Brisbane’s nightlife has become an election issue, but it taps into a conversation cities around the world have been having for the past decade – and one Brisbane needs to take seriously well into the future.

How can we build a 24-hour economy, and who should be responsible for it?

While they might not sound like real jobs, many cities across the globe are appointing “night mayors” and “night tsars” to take on this role.

Amsterdam was the first to hire a night mayor in 2014. New York established an Office of Nightlife a few years later, while Washington, Boston and Atlanta appointed similar divisions in the years since.

Sydney’s 24-Hour Economy Commissioner, Michael Rodrigues.Credit: Wolter Peeters

In 2021, our neighbours in NSW followed suit, appointing Michael Rodrigues as the state’s first 24-Hour Economy Commissioner.

A former Time Out executive, Rodrigues brought a wealth of knowledge about Sydney’s food and culture scene to the role. But it’s about more than being a tastemaker or a fun guy to go out on the town with.

“[It’s] really to champion nightlife at state government level and then co-ordinate across all aspects of state government that touch on the going-out ecosystem,” he says.

In simple terms, that means lobbying state agencies across departments such as police, transport, health and planning, and working with councils on strategies for specific areas.

Rodrigues is keen to dispel the myth that a 24-hour economy is just about staying up to get drunk.

“I try to stay pretty agnostic about what the entertainment form is,” he says. “I’m as much for live music as I am for comedy as I am for board games or a walk on the beach with an ice-cream.

“I want to help the market create the options and then let the market decide.”

Sydney’s 24-hour economy, particularly with the challenges of the city’s lockout laws and the impact of the pandemic, is different from Brisbane’s, but there are ways to learn from one another.

“Both cities are renowned daytime cities and coastal cities. So a temperate environment means people love getting up early and going outdoors,” Rodrigues says.

“So how do you create new conditions and the environment to encourage people to go out more flexibly across the 24-hour spectrum?”

Brisbane City Council already has a manifesto on Brisbane’s night-time economy. But a key difference with Rodrigues’s role is that it relies on the implementation of a strategy that is measured and reported each year.

“Is it worth bothering having someone in my role in this city or in others? The answer to that is, almost more important than the role, is having a plan,” he says.

In the context of what lies ahead for Brisbane, having a plan and someone to implement it would be worthwhile. That’s not just because of the Olympics, although the Games are looming as a significant test.

In August, the first stages of the Queen’s Wharf entertainment precinct will open, activating a new section of the inner-city that operates outside normal business hours. Meanwhile, hybrid work continues to change the function of Brisbane’s CBD, and the city is getting hotter, affecting the way we interact with different parts of it.

And as new entertainment precincts pop up, those of old like the Valley still need champions to ensure they don’t become a wasteland of the city’s late-night and live music ecosystem.

The Queen’s Wharf precinct will activate a new part of the inner city at all hours.

“We have this metaphor of the ‘neon grid’, which is how Sydney can light up at different times of day and night with different stories and people and places,” Rodrigues says.

“When you think about going out, the question is, who tells the best story to get people out of the house?”

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