While we’ve covered the opening, closure, and continued success of many of Australia’s live music venues, we were recently hipped to a unique live music space that’s been operating quietly in the Sydney neighbourhood of Marrickville for the past four years.
The Newsagency is just that, a former news agency, which was taken over and renovated by local musician Alison Avron, a singer, songwriter, and piano player, who opened the space whilst looking for somewhere to launch her first EP.
“I’m a musician and I needed a space to perform and I didn’t really want to perform in any of the other venues in Sydney so I made my own. That’s the short story,” Alison tells Tone Deaf about the birth of her much-loved 40-capacity venue.
“I was teaching singing out of my bedroom and one my friend’s was a real estate agent and he was like, ‘There’s this piece of shit old news agency down the road from you. Why don’t you move in, renovate it, and turn it into your studio?'”
That’s precisely what Alison did and since October 2011, The Newsagency has hosted a wide array of notable performers, including the likes of Lanie Lane, Elana Stone, Ngaiire, Miss Little, Abby Dobson, and Cosmo Jarvis.
“We work as a venue for hire,” Alison explains. “My ethos is that anyone should be able to have a stage at any point in their career. Anyone can play, it’s mostly catered for up-and-coming musicians, just because it’s such a small space.”
“It’s not a overwhelming to bring people to the venue, it’s very intimate and quite a listening environment.” To keep things focused on the performances and not alcohol sales, the venue is entirely BYO and does not have a bar.
“My ethos is that anyone should be able to have a stage at any point in their career.”“I don’t turn a profit. It’s totally a passion project,” Alison admits. “But because I’m an artist, it’s facilitating a lot of those needs… It’s not making a profit, however I can still manage to make rent. What I’m leaning towards now is Patreon.”
“I’ve set up a Patreon and that seems to be going quite well and I think that will be the future of the space. I’ll have patrons who keep the space alive and who are also the audience for the space.”
“With the current booking model at The Newsagency I’m very limited as to how many risks I can take,” Alison writes on her Patreon page. “I’m very dependent on the venue hire which can be quite stressful at times and I know sometimes it can be a bit of a turn off for artists.”
“By using Patreon, I’ll be able to ask more people for less money but get to do more things more regularly.” Readers can check out Alison’s Patreon page here, find more info on The Newsagency via the official website, and get in touch with Alison about performing at The Newsagency via her personal site.
