Every major city in the world has an entertainment district that is ruled by underworld figures and has a sleazy reputation that attracts vast numbers of visitors. In Sydney that was undoubtedly Kings Cross. In fact, Kings Cross was probably the unique entertainment metropolis that outshone the other Australian capital cities. It attracted visitors on a world wide basis.
It took many decades for that reputation to build. Originally Kings Cross was Sydney's " bohemian " suburb where sex for sale was prevalent. The years of the Vietnam war saw it become the R and R centre for Australian and American troops and its entertainment venues expanded accordingly. That success eventually became its undoing.
This Kings Cross phenomenon began to attract awesome numbers of people and competing entertainment saw vast crowds surging between shows, resulting in crowd violence. It became synonymous with drunken people fighting in the streets and order was slipping out of police control. This resulted in the " lockout laws " and of a consequence most of the shows closed their doors as patronage plummeted - and Kings Cross " died " !
The " heart " of Sydney died with it, and now there are moves to repeal those lockout laws to renew Sydney as a place that again welcomes the world, but that ban will remain on Kings Cross. The underworld still retains property there and the government is determined that it will not regain its former glory. Without the lockout laws a more diverse entertainment district will emerge.
Sydney is undoubtedly a " world " city and it is a fact of life that many people like to drink into the small hours of the morning. The closure of Kings Cross created a vacuum and that law repeal will enable an equilibrium to find its own level. That repeal is finding opposition from both medical people and the churches but it is unrealistic to expect the restrictions of an earlier age to apply to the biggest city in Australia today.
Those lockout laws were intended as a temporary restriction to tame a problem of excess. They have done that, and their removal is overdue. Hopefully, Sydney will merge its new entertainment more widely across the city rather than concentrate it in a single suburb but that will depend on how the entertainment scene formulates itself - and what becomes popular.
At the moment, Sydney is not attractive to the world audience because it lacks the entertainment depth constricted by those lockout laws. It is the special magic of entrepreneurs who create the scene that gains the appeal of the people that will emerge once those laws are repealed and we will just have to wait and see how that is configured.
Sydney is a blank canvas, waiting for its entertainment future to arrive !
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