It closed after two days and set a new record in Australia for such campaigns run in the music industry.
James Young, co-owner and booker of the ACDC Lane venue, intended to run the campaign for 42 days. He turned to fans to help out when faced with between $80,000 to $92,000 worth of renovations. A new 12-storey 189-apartment residential tower at 108 Flinders Street was being occupied by its first residents in early August. Some of the northern balconies looked directly over the seven-nights-a-week venue, and Young thought he’d pro-actively get the renovations done before the inevitable noise complaints began. One single complaint would see them closed down, according to current laws.
Sound proofing included building a brick wall behind the stage, double glazing of all windows and setting up a two-door soundproof bubble entrance. However, Young was forced to close the campaign after 24 hours after an astounding $50,000 was raised from 775 pledges.
Young was under pressure to keep the campaign open from would-be pledges. They still wanted to get their hands on incentives Cherry Bar had offered to pledge like branded ‘I Saved Rock’n’Roll’ T-shirts, and the opportunity to have their names on one of the 100 bricks on the new wall. “For three seconds I contemplated continuing with it,” Young told Beat. “But I realised that in all good faith do that when I’ve already got the (target) money.”
Cherry Bar’s campaign beat the previous record of $40,000 in 38 hours by Melbourne’s Ne Obliviscaris. Young says that the response to the Cherry Bar’s call-out was more than just 14 years of goodwill. “The punters are sending the message out that protecting live music venues is a priority for them. And it is. It’s the most important issue out there at the moment for the music industry.”
