Pōneke's newest music venue is almost ready for business

By Chris Schulz

"We'll be ready in time... we don't have a choice," promises the owner of Meow Nui, whose self-imposed deadline is approaching fast.

On the footpath next to a busy inner-city Pōneke street, a flurry of activity is underway. Men in hard hats take turns unloading huge stacks of planks from a van, carrying them past a rubbish skip then through a set of bifold doors.

"Are you going to give us a hand?" says one of the burly builders when he spots me staring at them. I umm and ahh, then stuff my hands into my pockets. Those planks look too heavy for me to attempt on my own.

He sees my frown, senses my reluctance, then clears my conscience. "Just kidding ya," he says. He nods towards the Vivian Street building and tells me I'll find the man I'm looking for in there.

Things are even more hectic inside the large, airy complex with high ceilings and stained windows. Bursts of noise from hammers, drills and saws fight for attention. Planks get dropped on the floor. A stereo blasts Outkast's 'Hey Ya'. Some sing along. Others occasionally yelp, a sound that echoes off the walls.

Damian Jones is the conductor of this cacophony. "I've got to get another load of timber before they close," he tells one staff member. He passes a ring of keys to another. He's standing where a stage used to sit. Those fresh planks are needed to build a new one. "It needs to come up 200mm… maybe 300mm," he says. "The easiest way is to pull it apart and start again."

It's not just the stage getting that treatment. Jones, a veteran Wellington venue owner, is converting the Salvation Army's award-winning and abandoned 1990 Citadel church into a brand new music venue. Everything needs to be ripped out and replaced to create Meow Nui, a bigger, bolder, grander version of Meow, his other Pōneke venue he's been running with his wife for 15 years.

Right now, Meow Nui is a mess of wood, nails, dust, wires, ladders, tools, belts and empty energy drink cans, all the things needed to clear out the old stuff and make way for the new stuff. It doesn't look like much, but come 31 August, when Drax Project are booked for two shows, Jones says this will be turned into a music venue capable of hosting 1000 fans, on a par with Auckland's Powerstation.

"We'll be ready in time," he says. "We don't have a choice."

A venue of this size is something Pōneke has needed for years. No one seems to know when the cursed Wellington Town Hall renovations might be complete.

There's the Opera House, and the St James, but they're bigger, and are seated. There are smaller venues, like Shed 6 and The Hunter Lounge, but their scope is limited. "None of them are plug-and-play," says Jones. "They don't have a PA installed. They're not set up for gigs."

Meow Nui will be different, a full-time, dedicated music venue with excellent views of whoever's playing no matter where you're standing. To prove it, Jones takes me upstairs. The brown seats that used to be there have been ripped out, leaving steep concrete steps and wooden railings looking down over the venue.

With the exposed beams above and the stage below, Jones is right: the view is breathtaking. "It feels like it's massive," he says, then wanders down the back, where more building work is underway. "We're installing booths over here," he says. "You'll be able to order a bottle of champagne and still be able to see the stage."

It's not just for Pōneke. Jones believes Aotearoa needs Meow Nui too. That's because of the intricacies of the Australasian music market. Right now, touring's tight economics mean we're missing out on a whole range of mid-tier shows.

"There's a run of international shows that's done [in] Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane," says Jones. "Sometimes they tack on Perth or an Auckland (show), but it's expensive. You're adding travel and an extra day."

Having a Wellington venue of this size makes a New Zealand leg more viable. "You do an Auckland and a Wellington show. It adds more viability to doing a five-date tour," he says. Jones points to the recent JPEGMAFIA show announced only in Auckland. "It should have been in Wellington (too)," he says. "It's better for artists, better for promoters, better for everyone."

He says he already has nine shows locked in for September, and he's got meetings to lock in more. Promoters are keen to see Meow Nui in action. The dream, says Jones, is to host three or four shows a week.

"I can see a week where we have JPEGMAFIA one night, Cat Power the next night, then a band for older people, the Hoodoo Gurus or something like that, then an American soul singer, all in the same week."

Meow Nui is opening at a time when big changes are underway around the country.

Many venues struggled to stay open during Covid and needed a helping hand through the Save our Venues campaign. Now, Errick's is helping revive Dunedin's live music scene, a renovated Loons in Lyttleton is helping reinvigorate Christchurch, and Auckland is getting Double Whammy, a renovated venue space in St Kevin's Arcade merging Whammy, Backroom and The Wine Cellar, capable of hosting 450 fans.

Jones says Meow Nui is also his raised middle finger towards Live Nation, the touring behemoth that owns Ticketmaster and many of the country's festivals and venues. He's putting his money where his mouth is, investing his own money in the refurbishment.

"It's a DIY fit out, the bare minimum to open," he says. Asked about the cost, he says: "I'm not expecting any change from $700,000." Then he rethinks his estimate. "I'm hoping it will all get done for less than $1 million."

Before I can congratulate him, Jones takes off. When I head outside, his van's gone: the planks have been unloaded, and he's rushed off to pick up the rest of them. I don't get to say goodbye. But, earlier, I'd asked about the clear and obvious risks involved in opening a live music venue, of potential noise complaints from neighbours, of the growing Live Nation threat, of the financial pressures of the live touring market, of the cost of living crisis that is affecting everyone's budgets.

He nodded his head as I spoke, chanting, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah … yes, yes, yes," like he'd heard it all many times before. "I know what I'm doing," he told me. Then he paused, looked around his new venue, and sighed. "I don't care, to be honest. I really don't care. What's the worst that can happen?" He mentioned the key quote from the baseball movie Field of Dreams and exhaled. Pōneke needs this. But Jones has been dreaming about this for years, and he needs it too. "We've just got to do it. It just needs to happen."

Drax Project open Meow Nui on 30 & 31 August; tickets are available here.