Inner city live music venue closes its doors

Perth inner city basement venue The Sewing Room will close its doors at the end of April.

Opening in October 2017, The Sewing Room was one of few places to catch live original music in the city for over five years. With the first new nightclub license in the city for three decades, the venue was popular with DJs and dance communities.

Local booking and management company Blue Grey Pink worked with the venue since the beginning, taking on bookings and marketing for the 320 capacity space. 

Blue Grey Pink’s Mark Neal said the venue closed due to mounting financial pressures through a challenging period.

“The owners of The Sewing Room are closing down the business to make room for something new,” he said. “In reality, the venue didn’t make enough money. There’s a lot of factors that went against us.”

“For starters, much like every other venue in Australia, we exist on drink sales, and the drinking culture is changing. The cost of living has gone up, the price of drinks went with it. Young people are smarter and healthier, they don’t wanna get caught on film doing something stupid while drunk, and they have to be more conscious of how they spend their money.”

“It’s a good thing the alcohol culture is changing, but it’s tough for live music spaces. If we charged more for tickets then the space becomes less accessible, we’d be open less often, and we wouldn’t be able to support younger artists.”

The Sewing Room has hosted live acts like Spacey Jane, G Flip, Noah Dillon, Sly Withers, Ruby Fields, Gum, Waax, Voyager and Great Gable, who have all gone on to sell out bigger rooms around the country. “That’s just to name a few of the artists who played shows here,” said Mark Neal. “We nurtured new talent with weekday events, and ran heaps of after work shows for the inner city audiences.”

The Sewing Room was also one of the most accessible nightclubs in the city, with a lift installed at the entry, and the first gender neutral toilet in the city. “We actively ran shows for accessible audiences with suitable lighting and space for everyone to feel comfortable,” Mark Neal said.

Winners of the 2020 and 2022 WAM label of the year award, Blue Grey Pink recently took on music bookings for The Moon Cafe in Northbridge, and will continue to work in music through artist management and label releases. 

Local music fans are encouraged to get down to The Sewing Room while they still can. There are only two weekends left until the giant wooden doors on Wolf Lane are closed forever. 

Local live music venue The Sewing Room will close its doors at the end of April, 2023. For more info and event details, head to sewingroom.com.au