‘While This Space Is Done, Season Three isn’t’: Independent Brisbane Venue Teases Comeback Post-Eviction

Despite beloved independent Brisbane venue Season Three’s eviction over the weekend, there is still hope. 

Taking to Instagram last night, owner Nick Smethurst has teased a new iteration of the venue coming soon.

“I just wanted to let people know that while this space is done, Season Three isn't. And I don't want to conflate the ending of 1/200 Wickham Street here with the ending of the project. I thought the two were tied together. It turns out I was wrong. I think there's more that we have to do, and we've found a pretty cool way that we're going to do it.”

Though Smethurst is remaining tight-lipped on how exactly Season Three will return, he has confirmed that “more news” will be announced “shortly”. Originally, Smethurst teased an appearance on 4ZZZ to “share some memories and make a little announcement”, but he has now decided to “keep that announcement in the bag for a minute.”

One thing is for certain: Season Three is not gone for good. In fact, the venue’s Instagram page even teases a “New iteration soon!” in its bio. We’ll have to wait and see exactly what that iteration entails.

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Just last week, Smethurst had quite the candid chat with The Music, discussing the death of independent venues in Brisbane.

“It's becoming harder and harder to have a truly independent platform, especially one that isn't tethered to alcohol sales,” he said. “This thing that we do, this live music thing that so many of us have thrown our lives behind, whether we are organising or performing or both, it doesn't make sense. It genuinely doesn't make sense, if you're looking at it along spreadsheet based economic lines. It's no longer possible to make a living - but I'm telling everyone something they already know. You can't make a sustainable living from writing music, releasing it, in a lot of cases, even from playing it live. 

“As you have increasing corporate consolidation, well, it's going to get harder and harder to justify why a venue stays open in the first place, if you're running the books. You have large management organisations taking over most of the venues, which is the case, and there's one or two groups of people booking most of the rooms in town, because all of the independents kind of sold up the ladder to try and sustain themselves. I get it, you know? People consolidate. They consolidate to pool resources, which is an understandable impulse. You can see it with venues too, like, ‘Oh shit, our venue isn't working’, or, ‘Running bookings is hard’, or any of that, leads to, ‘We should consolidate’. I mean, how fussy can you be when the system and the powers that be have removed any economic viability from the creative arts?”