Sydney could be a truly great city for live music. It already has most of the ingredients.

The extraordinary flourishing of grassroots music talent currently underway in Sydney offers the potential for major creative, community and commercial opportunities. To properly capitalise, we need to overhaul our approach to live music, addressing key infrastructure, training and investment gaps.

While live music in parts of the city appears to be thriving, foundational problems are creating serious risks for the sector.

While the ambition of the past five years’ regulatory reform and initiatives is very welcome, and another wave of vibrancy reforms are currently being proposed, the job is not yet done.

This report proposes six recommendations (and 16 specific actions) for government and businesses to make Sydney a great city for live music. Detailed in the recommendations section, these aim to:

• Prioritise and promote domestic talent
• Deliver industry-led training
• Better target funding mechanisms
• Get planning and regulation working in concert with live music
• Make it easier to work with government
• Bring the reforms to life.