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Take the mic and tell us your thoughts 🎤

Live music plays a big role in community connection, social cohesion, and individual wellbeing.

Our City is home to a live music scene that supports our identity, economy and sense of place. It not only fuels local nightlife and creative expression, but also boosts our City’s reputation as a hub for cultural diversity and innovation.

In 2019 alone, Maribyrnong hosted 3,397 live music events, drawing more than 324,000 attendees and generating $36.4 million for the local economy (Live Music Census 2019, most recent).

Based on previous conversations with venue operators, local musicians, and young people, along with calls from our community for more live music during engagement on the New Horizons: Creative Maribyrnong 2030 Strategy, we've drafted a Live Music Action Plan.

How to participate

We want to know if the four key outcomes of the draft Plan are in line with your thinking and what actions you would like us to prioritise.

We are also keen to understand how we can continue supporting live music in our City, generally.

View the draft Plan in the document library and share your feedback online via the short survey or ideas wall below, or in-person at one of our engagement events (see 'Timeline').

We have extended our engagement by an extra week to allow more time for ideas and suggestions.

Feedback now closes midnight Sunday 28 September 2025.

Four key outcomes of the Live Music Action Plan

  • Outcome 1

    A music-friendly city with clear pathways for venues, artists and industry professionals to operate, develop new work, perform and prosper.

  • Outcome 2

    A live music scene, which reflects the City’s rich cultural diversity and builds belonging, wellbeing, and participation across all communities.

  • Outcome 3

    A thriving night-time economy powered by live music in traditional and non-traditional spaces.

  • Outcome 4

    Melbourne’s inner west becomes known as the go-to destination for discovering new talent and experiencing high-quality, diverse and innovative musical performance.

Draft actions

The draft Plan proposes actions over a three year-period to achieve four outcomes. Some of the actions include:

  • creating a live music working group engaging promoters, programmers, venue owners, artists, and other music industry professionals, to advise Council and share ideas on how to create a music-friendly city
  • bidding for a major music industry conference for Melbourne's West
  • education for live music venues, neighbouring residents and businesses
  • developing an updated busking and public performance guide
  • engaging with priority cohorts to create a database of local performers from culturally diverse backgrounds
  • expanding and growing partnerships with the Melbourne Internal Jazz Festival and Fringe Festival partnerships
  • further positioning Footscray Park's Western and Eastern Lawn as a preferred space for major national and international music festivals
  • positioning Yarraville Gardens as a venue for boutique commercial and community music festivals in partnership with local venues.

Further information is available in the Draft Actions Document.

Add to our ideas wall

Take our short survey