Toowoomba business Living Entertainment owners reveal battle to stay afloat after 2022 Lismore floods

Two years after his entire livelihood was swept away in floodwaters, Nat Dobbie has rebuilt and relocated his boutique hi-fi business to Toowoomba.

Nat Dobbie of Living Entertainment after relocating the business from Lismore to Toowoomba's The Bernoth Centre, Monday, May 20, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Nat Dobbie watched nearly a decade’s worth of hard work, dedication and money get submerged by 14m floodwaters in 2022 — a scene that would have crushed most small businesses for good.

“Even though we were insured, the insurance doesn’t cover natural disasters so I lost the last ten years of work,” the owner of Living Entertainment said.

“We probably lost $750,000 in stock and other things, so it was a big blow — it forced me to rethink things.”

The Living Entertainment showroom at Lismore both during and after the 2022 flood event.

Instead of letting the Lismore flood event sink him and his family’s livelihoods, Mr Dobbie “wiped away muddy tears” and pivoted his boutique hi-fi and home entertainment business to online.

“For the past two years, we really buttoned down on it, focused on the website and I’m very proud of it,” he said.

“It took a lot of grit, determination and stubbornness, and it’s very easy to wallow in your loss but that’s how I put dinner on the table.

“The online store is now a big proportion of my business and it’s allowed us to trade for two years without a physical store for two years.”

The Living Entertainment showroom at Lismore both during and after the 2022 flood event.

Now he and wife Renae call the Garden City home after opening their massive new showroom at the Bernoth Centre just weeks ago, in a move that will not only secure its place in southeast Queensland but find a new distribution model to cater for its fast-growing online audience.

The new Toowoomba showroom includes a cross-section of the home cinemas, amplifiers, speakers, turntables and hi-fi systems that the business sells, with some setups costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Nat Dobbie of Living Entertainment after relocating the business from Lismore to Toowoomba's The Bernoth Centre, Monday, May 20, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Mr Dobbie said the decision to move to Queensland was not just in the best interests of the business.

“In big life-changing moments like this, it’s rare that you get the chance to ask if this was the place to raise your family, and we had that opportunity,” he said.

“We looked at the main cities (to relocate), but beyond the business we asked what was most important, and we said family and education were.

“That’s where Toowoomba stood out so we made the move to the Garden City.

“We’re living in Highfields (and) we love it, we like the parks here and the gardens.

“My wife is a real green thumb so seeing all that stuff has been lovely for her — the kids love to get outside.”

Given the strong online presence of the business and the boutique nature of the sector, Mr Dobbie also wasn’t worried about the move to a new physical market.

“We’re a bit of niche business, the hi-fi sector is small so a lot of our suppliers pitched in and got behind us (after the flood),” he said.

“Our customer base were fantastic, they would fundraise (and) because it is a niche and this stuff is quite expensive, you know who most of these people are so I think they feel more connected to what we do.”