Christchurch venues call for updated noise plan to protect live music culture

Protecting live music venues is taking on a new urgency in Christchurch, with the popular 12 Bar announcing it will close at the end of the month.

With people flocking back to live in the central city after the earthquakes, complaints about noise from entertainment venues had increased.

But positive changes were being worked on so residents and live music could live in harmony.

12 Bar co-owner Matt Kemstra said the decision to close was mostly due to the pandemic.

"It's definitely one of the hardest types of hospitality venues to run for all sorts of different reasons, and noise is a big part of it," Kemstra said.

"We want to see a vibrant central city, we want to walk the talk, but that's not really happening at the moment when it comes to that vibrant central city lifestyle."

He felt more planning for live music venues was needed after the earthquakes.

"The new city plan is coming out later this year, but the council really should've gotten onto it a lot earlier to prevent this sort of thing from happening," Kemstra said.

12 Bar, along with neighbouring venues Space Academy and darkroom, approached Christchurch City Council in April to ask for better support to manage noise levels before people moved into the nearby housing.

Duo Group was building the development. It saw the neighbouring music venues as a positive, and used them as a selling point.

But a spokesperson said the company did not consult with them prior to construction starting.

"When we began the project, we didn't consider the houses might create sound issues for those venues," they said.

"It wasn't until later in the piece when Dux was having issues that we spoke with Save Our Venues. By that point, there wasn't a lot that we could do to help, just because we had sold all the houses and were advancing in construction."

Duo Group said it was keen to help where it could and was open to more conversations. Plenty of possible solutions had been floated.

Zak Cooper owned and operated Flux, a courtyard bar, further down Saint Asaph Street. He said the council's noise plan for the CBD was outdated.

"The only high-noise emissions zone, which is suitable for live music spaces, is currently a group of derelict old bars with no one inhabiting them.

"It's not absurd to expect an increase on the current [decibel] levels, which are the sound levels that are allowed outside mixed-use venues.

"At the moment, a car on the street is louder than what we're allowed to be."

Art of noise

Cooper thought changing the definition of music would also help.

"The biggest thing at the moment is that within legislation, music can be described or is categorised as noise. And noise is known as pollution.

"As soon as we recognise music as an asset to the city, rather than a hindrance, it's going to go a long way to changing what are some pretty arbitrary rules."

Darkroom co-owner Nick Vassar said music was art and should be treated as such. He believed Ōtautahi would benefit by taking a leaf out of Dunedin City Council's book.

"They're probably a year ahead of us, realistically. They've had acoustic engineers and so forth doing analysis of venues and what the city needs. There's quite a good hundred-page report that they've done, which is really cool."

National organisation Save Our Venues had been helping the bars and council work on potential changes.

Representative Taylor MacGregor said getting the balance between quality inner-city living and live music was a challenge across the motu.

"Places will come and go, but if we can put in place those principles to create room for live music then we want more people involved," he said.

"If that means that more places open up, that's great. Sustaining that grassroots music in New Zealand is extremely important."

Vassar said it would be great to have changes in place this year before residents move in across the road. But he also wanted to make sure time was taken to get the plan right for the future.

"I don't want us, or future venues or whoever, to in 10 years go 'oh this isn't working, we need to do it all over again'."

Space Academy co-owner Richard Barnacle said he felt optimistic about the future of the local scene.

"I know that working with council there are some limitations around how quickly things can turn around, but hopefully we're able to find immediate things [to change] so that everybody is happy."

Christchurch City Council was considering increasing the noise limits and subsidising acoustic engineers or soundproofing works for venues.

It said work was ongoing, but long-term changes to the city's plan were expected to take at least two years.