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What’s on in Sydney in December with eXpertLocal
2013 certainly has flown by, hasn’t it? You can really feel the sea calling out to say hi, the beaches singing their siren song, and of course the sounding of wine and food flowing as we hit the festive season.
Here are our picks for December. Let’s get social!
Music for your ears
Kylie Minogue’s “Confide in Me” gains a beautiful new outlook in the hands of Jep and Dep. You can take in this lovely experience and purchase the single for yourself at the Jep and Dep single launch Brighton Up Bar, December 5th.
After 8 years of playing the traps, Found at Sea say goodbye to their drummer, Tim. Check out this last look at the original Found at Sea line up with special guests The Model School and Suzy Connelly at FBi Social, December 7th.
When the likes of the Thieves, the Mountains and the Civilians are on the same bill for only $10, you know you don’t need to ask twice whether you’ve got a good excuse to party on a Thursday. Catch them at the Brighton Up Bar, December 12th.
Friday the 13th of December sees the amazing Hollow Bones strip paint off the walls with their jangled rock that is bound to impress. Take your dancing shoes and make sure you hair is set for gale force blowing away-ness. Head to Spectrum, thank us later.
Prog rock never sounded so good with a bill including Solkyri as headline, pirate, Koranic and Melbourne’s Kalacoma all set to rock the walls right off FBi Social. If you like your music brave, experimental, loud and technically awesome, you have to be there Saturday 14th.
Head to Chinese Laundry for the diggin’est deck the halls from DJ decks around on December 21st. The Christmas Garden Party kicks off at midday and includes all kinds of musical happiness. Get your beat on at Christmas while also raising money for the Bushfire Appeal. Nice one.
Make your brain sparkle
How does sampling lots of different food trucks, a pop up bar and live entertainment sound? Like a fun Friday? It’s happening people- check out Food Trucks United on Friday December 6th.
Check out what you can do at the Arthouse Hotel when you join Doctor Sketchy’s art class. You can choose from BYO art supplies right through to a cool arty setup and dinner.
End the year on equality in IT note when you get your Geek Girl on with the Geek Girl Panel at Atlassian on December 10th.
You can ponder if letter writing and memes really do make a difference at the Amnesty International Panel Debate on ‘A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words’ on December 10th.
Want to make more out of your Christmas without the guilt associate with food waste? Check out this nifty workshop Pocket, Plate and Planet run by Parramatta City Council on December 13th.
Need a little deep thinking over dinner and some business to boot? Hub Sydney’s Deep Dinner sounds like it’s perfect for you. See you there every third Tuesday of the month.
Embrace your inner Spock and check out the latest in short film sci-fi goodness at the WD Project Sci-Fi Awards on December 19th.
Shopping for the good gifts
Soak in the indie art and design that is the Finders Keepers Market at Eveleigh on the eve of Friday 6th and all day Saturday 7th of December.
Take a joyride to the beautiful Avoca Beach and enjoy the Avoca Christmas Fair on December 8th.
Summer is here and now it’s time for the Hornsby Twilight Markets, a perfect place to find a gift for someone special!
Visit the foodie heaven that is a Simon Johnson Pop Up Shop all the way through til December 27th.
Mosey on over to the Entertainment Quarter for their EQ markets every Saturday.
Christmas Day, your way
Looking to party?
Why not join the Collaborative Christmas party?
Get your word nerd on with the Copywriter’s Yuletide Fest.
Celebrate co-working and end of year hubberation at Hub Sydney.
Let your Entrepreneurship shine at The Entrepreneur’s and Self Employed Christmas Party
If you are having a solo Christmas, there are several wonderful places you can go and make new friends.
They include:
Bondi’s Chapel by the Sea as a guest or volunteerThe Christmas Day Picnic for orphans, singles, workers and more.
The Wayside Chapel’s Christmas Day Street Party.
Plus you can also Cole, take a glorious walk around the Rocks Pubs, experience Chinatown at Night, discover beautiful Bronte, or play guitars by the sea.
For all these and more fun activities, head to www.expertlocal.com
eXpertLocal wants to help entrepreneurs, adventurers and self starters
As members of the Sydney startup scene, the team at eXpertLocal know firsthand how hard it can be when you first start out.
And we also know from the events we attend, the time we spend on the internet and the sheer amount of new and interesting things popping up in this beautiful city of ours, that there is a lot of super brilliant ideas that simply aren’t gaining the coverage they should.
So we want to change that.Not just a platform to book things on
As a platform designed for events and activities, eXpertLocal gives any of you a unique way of testing out your idea before making huge financial investments in your own website, storefront or venue outlay. You can test your idea with an audience and see if it can gain traction.
As we’ve mentioned previously, we think this is a problem worth solving.
We’re trying to change big gaps in window fronts in Oxford street as much as we are attempting to excite Sydney siders about what is new. We want to aid in the discovery of Artisan craftspeople and small business owners trying to differentiate what they offer with unique ideas. We want to support people doing their own events through to market holders wondering if they should take the leap to retail, to change makers and creatively minded people looking for new ways to reach their audience.
At eXpertLocal, we’ve seen quite a few people trying to do their own thing. And we’re also living this as well as a startup. And so, we’ve decided if we’re going to be able to help you, and ourselves, we need to do things a little differently.More support for you, your dream and the Sydney scene
We’ve always offered ourselves as a booking platform calling ourselves an experience marketplace, but we have come to realise this is not enough. As a team, we’ve pulled together and racked our brain (and scribbled on an awful lot of butcher’s paper in the process!) to identify what the best value and best possible support eXpertLocal can offer.
So we’re taking the bull by the horns, and becoming an experience marketplace in as many senses as our small team can offer. This includes:
- Personally workshopping and writing your experiences for you
- Providing marketing support and content advice to help you promote your experience (and your idea)
- Including PR in the mix- and promoting you along with us
- Holding events on a monthly basis so you can not only find out what it’s like to be a host, but also meet other hosts (current and potential) in the process
- Bringing together all the kinds of wonderful and interesting events we find so more people can discover them
One hell of an awesome freebie
If you look at it this way, our team will be personally helping you to discover if your idea works, helping you market and promote it, providing you coverage in specialist and mainstream media- and removing headaches like building your own site or only pushing it through channels you know. All of which is covered in the 15% we charge on successfully booked tickets. Meaning if things don’t work out, you’ve received a lot of support, assistance, coverage and the ability to test your idea without spending any money.
And if it does work, it’s a fee well worth it (and still a lot cheaper than what you would pay independently).
We understand the pain of starting a dream, working on a new idea and trying to reach an entire audience. Don’t go through the motions yourself, learn with us and get a leg up towards a successful journey to the finish line.
We’ve now got a dedicated PR person working with a dedicated marketing and customer relations person looking to give you a super leg up- so drop us a line via support@expertlocal.com
Join our MeetUp group and join us to find out how to become a host.
Or book an experience workshop direct with Rebekah rebekah@expertlocal.com
What have you got to lose? Get serious about seeing if your idea works and get on www.expertlocal.com today!
What’s on in May
It may be getting colder, but Sydney certainly isn’t slowing down. There are some really awesome things to do and see happening in Sydney in May.
The Hollow Bones residency, Oxford Arts Factory
Lead by a wee Scottish firecracker who wields his guitar like a scythe to cut you down to size, the Hollow Bones is fast becoming one of the best (and yet most underrated) acts in Sydney. Luckily, the kids at Oxford Arts Factory know a damn good band when they see them and you’ll get the opportunity to see the Hollow Bones play on each Friday in May.
You’ll love this band if you love high energy performances, cracking vocals and rock that makes you cry “man, that was crazy awesome!”
The former Sando space was saved from becoming something else entirely by a bunch of musical cats with their hearts in the right place- and boy, are we hanging for it! What promises to be a little more hip, a lot better food and a pokie free zone, the Newtown Social Club opens its doors early May and promises to bring us some very tasty live music.
We’re currently on the hunt for someone who wants to make it their new stomping ground to run tours and show newbies what’s hot, so if this is you, get in touch!
Almost 12 months in the making, Redfern’s latest small bar “Hustle and Flow” has just had it’s opening party and is due to start service in earnest from the first week in May. You’ve got to love these guys already- it’s a husband and wife team who are super passionate about Redfern, street art and hip-hop and RnB.
They commissioned graffiti artists from Sydney to paint the bar up, they’ve been compiling play lists on the best tunes for months and with every single delay, they’ve just hung right in there to create what could be the coolest new bar in the ‘hood.
Get there before the cool kids do…you won’t regret it!
eXpertLocal Tours:
Like bicycling? You’ll love the Mountain Bike at the Dam Beach.
If iced coffee is more your thing, join in the search for the perfect iced coffee.
Freelancers in need of a night out will love the Freelance Jungle.
And we’ll be heading off to check out the Hollow Bones at Oxford Arts factory as part of the Sydney live music tours on May 31st.
If you’d like your venue, gig or event features in our What’s on blogs, get in touch via support@expertlocal.com !
Sydney Music Scene: What can be done?
Rocking out at the Annandale Hotel
Those of us that love the Sydney music scene are often on tender hooks when another closure or some bad news is announced. The news of the Annandale Hotel going into receivership is no exception. We’ve been hit hard by the closure of the Hoey, the Excelsior and now one of the last remaining stalwarts of rock’s fate hangs in the hands of a bank, a buyer and the council.
So what can we do?
It’s been said a million times before but- the best thing you can do for the Sydney music scene is get out there and see some live music. This is particularly important if you like the rock and heavier stuff because it is getting harder and harder to find the places where the local scene can belt out a few tunes without worrying about the neighbours.
Why should we expect businesses to run on the smell of an oily rag because we want them in theory but not actually front up and see some music, putting our money where our mouths are?
The bottom line is- if you want metal, prog, heavy rock, indie rock, blues rock and all that kind of stuff, you need to get out and see more gigs.
At eXpertLocal, we believe the music scene is important and we want to support it.
We know what the pain points are. Going to gigs and ending up seeing not so good bands, going alone being a pretty ordinary experience and even whether or not it is raining really affects if people go to gigs in this city.
But what if… you could hang out with someone who knew their gigs, have a laugh and share a beer with them and know you’d have a good time?
What if you could make friends with other people who dig the same kind of music rather than stand alone?
What if it didn’t matter if it rained because you knew the evening would be worth the soggy jeans or playing “pain the tail on the taxi”?
We’ve got a theory that if we got the people who were passionate about seeing live music running tours, selecting the right bands and organising people properly, we could demonstrate that Sydney’s live music scene is healthier than ever- and make it stronger.
That’s why we want to trial this theory with recruiting hosts to show other punters their version of the Sydney live music scene. As a host, you choose the gigs, make use of eXpertLocal to promote them, get the group together and can charge a small booking fee for the privilege.
If you know the good bands to see in any kind of music, we’re calling on you to share it with other people. You can go to the gigs you want, as often as you like, with other gig pigs learning what’s cool from you.
This is the perfect fit for anyone who is already running their own music review blog or writing for street press about the scene- or if you are going out to see music regularly anyway and wouldn’t mind meeting some new mates as you do it. You can take that to a new level by booking your own tours through us at the same time as getting known as someone who actually gives a crap and goes to see bands on a regular basis.
So what have you got to lose? If you want the Sydney Music Scene to survive, group up, get involved and go see some live music!
Create your tour and let’s get this happening.
