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ideasphere 49 minutes ago [-]
There’s a guy in Wellington making a photocopied weekly gig guide which will do more for the local music scene than this attempt at making a profitable social media. I guarantee it.
Its actually a small volunteer crew not one guy, and they are great!
We have shared their posts on our socials, they do the guide, a weekly access radio show, free classifieds, all self funded... Which is exactly what Propel exists to support.
On the profitable social media bit. I have been a worker in the scene for 8 years, running events, promoting other people, pushing the scene. And i'll keep doing it here because I love it, not because theres money in it.
angled 13 minutes ago [-]
Reminds me of the Tokyo Gig Guide, which I always hit up when I’m in town.
I love the older style layout, it is much more readable that 99% of websites available today. Also that Classified section is wonderful.
mastazi 13 minutes ago [-]
that's beautiful, I really wish there was more media like this
pixelesque 2 hours ago [-]
> Live performance revenue reached $329 million, well above pre-Covid levels.
Is that inflation-adjusted? And as the article points out, very little of that is local talent, so it's likely some of that's due to the cost of tickets.
As someone who lived in NZ (although Wellington) for 10 years until last year, the local music scene was there, but at least in Wellington, the change in the 10 years I was there was considerable: The earthquake in 2016 progressively caused several venues on Cuba Street to close due to building regulations, and Covid was a significant shock as well, with some of the smaller (although most places in Wellington were small!) gig rooms / bars / breweries that would often host bands closing.
There was still Valhalla, San Fran, The Rogue & Vagabond and others, but it just didn't feel as much was going on other than for things like Cuba Dupa street festival, etc, or the Jazz weekends that would be held.
As the article points out, this is not localised to NZ, it's happening in Australia and the UK as well in terms of venues/pubs closing and live music not being quite the draw it once was because of that.
ColdStream 24 minutes ago [-]
Yep, here in Oz (Victoria) the scene is struggling. You see some glimpses trying to keep it going but it is rare.
Sometimes it feels like all we have is King Gizzard occasionally and then nothing but DJ's and cover bands to fill the gaps at the local RSL. Places like The Croxton still put on a great spread however.
It has been about 8 years since I was last in Wellington, it seemed to still have some stuff going for it but it was also clear that the decline was setting in.
Melatonic 55 minutes ago [-]
There's a venue in NZ called "San Fran" ? That's pretty cool
DinosaurArms 46 minutes ago [-]
First it was a massage/sauna place called The San Francisco Bathhouse, and then it kept that name when it turned to a live venue. Now it is just San Fran.
rvba 2 hours ago [-]
No idea how it looked in New Zealand, but after covid "ended"* there were a lot of people who simply wanted to go out - after spending so much time indoors.
I suspect that people went out more in 2023-2025, but then they reversed to the mean + economic impacts (of money printing everywhere) hit.
* by the way, did covid officially ever end? the new variants seem to be still there, but it just stopped being covered by media after Russia invaded Ukraine)
kurthr 2 hours ago [-]
In the US deaths peaked at >450k in 2021 and then fell <80k in 2023. They have roughly halved each year since (on track for ~10k this year. There are about 30-40k deaths each year due to influenza so this isn't really news any more.
Most everyone is vaccinated except the young who seem to have relatively mild infections. Of course there are probably excess cardiac deaths due to immune response, but that's even smaller and much more difficult to measure or determine cause for.
sitharus 2 hours ago [-]
New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries, but other than people with health problems I see no signs that people aren't going out any more due to Covid.
However due to other reasons people definitely have less money for discretionary activities, especially the youth.
And no, Covid never ended. It's still here, it's still killing and disabling people, but due to vaccines and antivirals it's less prevalent than it was.
2 hours ago [-]
mvdtnz 1 hours ago [-]
What? NZ had one of the strictest, most prolonged and most extreme lockdown regimes in the world. Especially Auckland.
slyall 1 hours ago [-]
NZ had very strong lockdown but once the country had zero covid there were months of no lockdowns at all.
Other countries had longer lockdowns or even when they didn't people were not going to concerts etc.
javascriptfan69 1 hours ago [-]
Not really.
The international border quarantine was quite extreme, but the rest of the country was (mostly) business as normal.
Taniwha 51 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, we had a very strict initial lockdown, and closed the border, once the number of cases went to 0 we opened up again, we then had regional lockdowns after cases broke the border quarantine.
mvdtnz 57 minutes ago [-]
Our level 4 lockdown was scored at 95/100 ("extreme") by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker. Our border lockdowns and MIQ system were extreme and very prolonged stretching into 2022 and even impacted returning citizens.
javascriptfan69 43 minutes ago [-]
Our level 4 lockdown didn't last very long.
The strictness index (which is what I'm assuming you're referring to) varied over time as the response changed.
mvdtnz 30 minutes ago [-]
The claim I was initially responding to was, "New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries". Not specifically length. NZ lockdown was especially strict in some regards (level 4, border lockdown) and especially prolonged in others (Auckland lockdown, border and MIQ).
berghoffer 52 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
fidotron 2 hours ago [-]
> And yet local artists captured as little as 9 percent of New Zealand streaming, download and physical sales revenue in 2024. In the official end-of-year Top 50 singles chart, exactly one New Zealand track appeared. Radio plays local music, but only two nationwide commercial stations exceeded 20 percent local content.
This seems amazingly high for local content in a small English speaking market, unless that's all just Crowded House.
51 minutes ago [-]
22c 13 minutes ago [-]
Sadly, the AI writing is so terribly distracting.
So the long and short of it seems to be an advertisement for the site itself?
I think this should've been a show HN as your affiliation with the site is not obvious from the outset.
Good luck with your project, but I suspect it will take more than a Claude subscription and a dream to replace what the article claims has been lost.
rvba 2 hours ago [-]
> Propel has published more than 225 articles
Open topic is if anyone is reading those or not.
But decline of quality press & local press is a very big problem.
On another board there is a person who (for free) collects information about people who lost their lives in car accidents during every summer vacation. That person tries to link to articles that described what happened. More and more, there are simply no articles -> because there is no more local press, even a local portal that would write about it.
In a way it's on the people - who dont want to pay for content.
Perhaps due to some content shifted to youtube, tiktok or facebook.
mvdtnz 2 hours ago [-]
I couldn't be more enthusiastic about the local music scene here. But that doesn't mean I'm going to read AI slop about it. If you want to promote the arts, start by using your own words.
frereubu 1 hours ago [-]
I'm almost as tired of complaints about people using AI to write things as I am about people using AI to write things.
peterashford 2 hours ago [-]
Seems to have a very narrow focus in terms of variety of music covered
http://www.theimage04.com
On the profitable social media bit. I have been a worker in the scene for 8 years, running events, promoting other people, pushing the scene. And i'll keep doing it here because I love it, not because theres money in it.
https://www.tokyogigguide.com/en/
I love the older style layout, it is much more readable that 99% of websites available today. Also that Classified section is wonderful.
Is that inflation-adjusted? And as the article points out, very little of that is local talent, so it's likely some of that's due to the cost of tickets.
As someone who lived in NZ (although Wellington) for 10 years until last year, the local music scene was there, but at least in Wellington, the change in the 10 years I was there was considerable: The earthquake in 2016 progressively caused several venues on Cuba Street to close due to building regulations, and Covid was a significant shock as well, with some of the smaller (although most places in Wellington were small!) gig rooms / bars / breweries that would often host bands closing.
There was still Valhalla, San Fran, The Rogue & Vagabond and others, but it just didn't feel as much was going on other than for things like Cuba Dupa street festival, etc, or the Jazz weekends that would be held.
As the article points out, this is not localised to NZ, it's happening in Australia and the UK as well in terms of venues/pubs closing and live music not being quite the draw it once was because of that.
Sometimes it feels like all we have is King Gizzard occasionally and then nothing but DJ's and cover bands to fill the gaps at the local RSL. Places like The Croxton still put on a great spread however.
It has been about 8 years since I was last in Wellington, it seemed to still have some stuff going for it but it was also clear that the decline was setting in.
I suspect that people went out more in 2023-2025, but then they reversed to the mean + economic impacts (of money printing everywhere) hit.
* by the way, did covid officially ever end? the new variants seem to be still there, but it just stopped being covered by media after Russia invaded Ukraine)
Most everyone is vaccinated except the young who seem to have relatively mild infections. Of course there are probably excess cardiac deaths due to immune response, but that's even smaller and much more difficult to measure or determine cause for.
However due to other reasons people definitely have less money for discretionary activities, especially the youth.
And no, Covid never ended. It's still here, it's still killing and disabling people, but due to vaccines and antivirals it's less prevalent than it was.
Other countries had longer lockdowns or even when they didn't people were not going to concerts etc.
The international border quarantine was quite extreme, but the rest of the country was (mostly) business as normal.
The strictness index (which is what I'm assuming you're referring to) varied over time as the response changed.
This seems amazingly high for local content in a small English speaking market, unless that's all just Crowded House.
So the long and short of it seems to be an advertisement for the site itself?
I think this should've been a show HN as your affiliation with the site is not obvious from the outset.
Good luck with your project, but I suspect it will take more than a Claude subscription and a dream to replace what the article claims has been lost.
Open topic is if anyone is reading those or not.
But decline of quality press & local press is a very big problem.
On another board there is a person who (for free) collects information about people who lost their lives in car accidents during every summer vacation. That person tries to link to articles that described what happened. More and more, there are simply no articles -> because there is no more local press, even a local portal that would write about it.
In a way it's on the people - who dont want to pay for content. Perhaps due to some content shifted to youtube, tiktok or facebook.