Sydney’s Oxford Street in identity crisis as crowd changes and cost of living bites

It’s 1.30am in the outdoor “trash alley” of gay nightclub ARQ, and Jack Schmidt has just arrived on the last train into town. Most of his friends aren’t out because it’s Saturday, and on Saturday night you have to pay cover.

That’s a dealbreaker. “It’s just too expensive,” says Schmidt, 26. “The cost of living has gone up. Going out is a luxury. A lot of gays are really f---ing poor.”

A few years ago, before COVID and certainly before the lockout laws, this club would have been packed. But on a clear Saturday night in early June, it’s nearly empty.

Zali O’Sullivan and Jack Schmidt at the ARQ nightclub in Darlinghurst.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

That’s not the case everywhere – a few blocks away on Oxford Street, the club Universal still has a queue outside, and other venues are busy, too. Still, as 20-year-old James Campton says, the strip has “died down” since summer.

Sydney’s successful WorldPride festival was supposed to give the city’s LGBTQ epicentre a new lease on life after a torrid decade. Instead, Oxford Street is suffering from an identity crisis caused by an influx of heterosexual clubbers creating tension with the queer community, as well as changing nightlife trends and behaviours – especially among Generation Z.

The death of Oxford Street has been prematurely announced many times before. The question for business owners, partygoers, policymakers and the queer community is not so much whether this iconic piece of Sydney will survive – it always does – but how it can thrive in a time of tighter wallets and different tastes.

Safety is another, more immediate problem. In April, former reality TV contestant David Subritzky was called a “faggot” and left with a bloody lip after an altercation in a kebab shop. Police were called. There have been numerous instances of homophobic abuse, especially towards drag queens.

On Tuesday night, the issue was raised at a meeting of business owners, politicians, police and community members at the historic Stonewall Hotel.

Local MP Alex Greenwich, who is gay, said he was deeply concerned about the number of homophobic, transphobic and dragphobic incidents reported to him each week. “In 2023 we shouldn’t be having to deal with this happening on Oxford Street,” he said. “It’s important we take efforts to stamp it out.”

Drag queen Mu Lan: “This is our home. If we don’t feel safe here, where shall we go?”Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

At the meeting, operators were urged to sign up to a “pride business charter” drafted by the City of Sydney council which asks Oxford Street business owners to honour and share LGBTQ history and culture, create welcoming and inclusive spaces, and ensure LGBTQ people are kept safe.

Many blame the opening of a new straight-oriented nightclub, Noir, nearly a year ago, and the crowd it attracts. There is an online petition detailing a string of alleged incidents and calling for the club’s licence to be removed.

In one recent incident, drag queen Mu Lan said she was grabbed on the crotch by a female patron of Noir while meeting friends there after finishing work at another club.

“This is the problem: we should feel safe at any single venue on the street because we’re not safe anywhere else in the city apart from this street,” Lan said. “This is our home. If we don’t feel safe here, where shall we go?”

Noir owner Ronny Dubé attended Tuesday’s meeting and said he would sign the charter. He acknowledged the club’s arrival had caused some friction in the Oxford Street ecosystem, but said he and his staff had a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination.

“We’re doing everything that we can to try to mitigate these issues that inherently happen when a venue attracts a heterosexual crowd into an LGBTQ dominated precinct,” he said.

He has hired extra security, who are on the lookout for anti-social behaviour, and the club is also working with police. “Whenever there’s an opportunity for us to be better, we’re gonna be better.”

With the closure of venues in Kings Cross and The Star’s nightclub Marquee, LGBTQ venues on Oxford Street are also dealing with an influx of guests from outside the community. Universal, probably the strip’s most popular club, recently banned hens’ and bucks’ nights from the venue.

But safety is only a part of the puzzle; the cost of living (and partying) is keeping people at home. Good luck getting any drink under $10, and cocktail prices now start with a “2”. Few young people can afford to live in the inner city any more, and poor late-night public transport means they face long and expensive Uber rides home.

One nightclub on the strip, Nevermind, opened just before WorldPride but lasted just 62 days before “temporarily” closing, blaming the quiet atmosphere of the street in the lead-up to winter; ARQ also recently put Thursday nights into hibernation for the same reasons.

Charlotte Hogan, 23, works behind the bar at Bitter Phew on Oxford Street. She identifies as LGBTQ but generally doesn’t go out in this area with her friends, preferring private events, warehouse parties and underground raves. That way they don’t have to deal with overzealous security, venues that empty out by 3am, or crazy drink prices.

“I don’t really think anyone who’s my age can afford to go out in Sydney,” Hogan says. “My rent got put up over 20 per cent ... I think that’s why a lot of us choose to go to more underground parties where you can BYO.”

People on the dancefloor at ARQ nightclub.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Venues are starting to respond. Poof Doof, a weekly party on Saturdays at Kinselas, has cut drink prices, while Universal this week said it was slashing 40 per cent off all drinks between 8pm and 9.30pm on Mondays to Thursdays.

“Rate rises and the cost of living [have] bitten us all, and we know that nights out are becoming fewer and further between,” the club said. “We wanted to make a great night out a little more accessible.”

Then there is a more existential question: are nightclubs just out of vogue? Gen Zs are certainly drinking less, research shows. Many people the Herald spoke to were bored with the traditional formula of Oxford Street venues, which have done little to shake up their approach post-COVID.

Gary Nunn, a journalist and occasional party promoter, recently tried to do something different by organising a Broadway musical-themed club night at the Oxford Hotel. The Sydney debut was a success and this weekend he is taking it to Melbourne.

“We saw people that we’d never normally see [out],” Nunn says. “Providing something new and different can really work ... people just have to stop moaning about it and go out and do it.”

Jack Ward, 22, says Sydney nightlife can be a chore and going out clubbing isn’t everything. “I think we realised over the pandemic that there are more ways to enjoy ourselves,” he says. “Maybe there are things to do at pubs, there are always things to do virtually, or even just staying home.

Jack Ward says going out can sometimes feel like a chore.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

“The house party saw its return once lockdowns were lifted, especially in Sydney. People are really just enjoying the fact that not everything has to be going out and yet you can still have fun.”

Universal Hotels chief operating officer Richie Haines said the queer community had to fight to preserve the precinct and its safety.

“It’s not up to someone else to do it for us. We need to do it for ourselves, with the council, with state government, with police and all stakeholders,” he said.

“But it’s not something that we can sit back and sit idly by. We need to take steps to ensure that this precinct stays queer and that it stays safe. ”

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