CLIENT: City of Sydney Council

PROJECT: Night-time economy cost benefit analysis

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What were MAKE asked to do?

Sydney is a superb city and international tourist destination with a great ‘after dark’ experience, famously including its New Year’s Eve fireworks, Opera House, Cate Blanchet’s Sydney Theatre Company, a great music scene and some superb restaurants. 

However, the city’s approach to its night-time economy (NTE) has, by its own admission, been somewhat ad hoc and there were clear gaps in both its after dark ‘offer’ and in planning and managing the city after 6pm. Realising its potential, Sydney’s Lord Mayor embarked upon a process that took MAKE’s own Liverpool NTE development model to new levels of sophistication, pioneering a world class community engagement process. As a result, Sydney now ranks as the world’s most sophisticated approach to planning a city after dark.

MAKE, with our colleagues at economic measurement specialists TBR, were asked to contribute a ‘cost-benefit’ analysis of the city’s NTE to the Lord Mayor’s wider strategy process. The aim was to understand the current NTE scale and impact so policy decisions could be based on evidence rather than hunches or ‘who shouts loudest’. MAKE and TBR’s work was also crucial to provide a baseline so that Sydney can measure the progress of the city’s resulting 20 year NTE vision and action plan.

How did MAKE do it?

  • MAKE and TBR transferred our ‘Night-Mix’ methodology (our model for measuring the value of the NTE that we have pioneered in the UK) to estimate the turnover of the city’s ‘core’ NTE e.g. bars, theatres, cinemas etc. ($2.7bn), its ‘non-core’ NTE (i.e. supply chain - $12bn), and tax revenues generated to the state.

  • We analysed the resources consumed between 6pm and 6am by the police, health services, transport providers and the council itself. Crucially, we recommended ways to improve data collection (particularly around health) so that more accurate future measurements can be made.

  • We presented our findings to the city’s NTE Round Table Commission, chaired by the Lord Mayor, which has representation from the chief commissioner of police, heads of trade bodies etc, demonstrating how seriously Sydney is taking the development of its after dark economy.

What happened next?

The work has been fundamental in framing the debate away from one of the Sydney’s NTE solely as a ‘problem’ (although the city has been frank about its challenges), but to a new landscape of ‘opportunity’; one of shaping it for the community rather than one that serves the narrow interests of one age group or industry.

What unique value did MAKE bring to this project?

MAKE and TBR are the only analysts to have a fully developed approach to measuring NTE impact. This meant we could hit the ground running rather than spend time developing a new model. We also fully understand what data is likely to be available and its relative strengths and weakness, which given the partial nature of what is available is crucial in this type of project.