Punters Chip In To Save Melbourne’s Cherry Bar

With the help of devoted live music fans, Melbourne venue Cherry Bar has reached its ambitious crowdfuding target in just one day and will be saved from the threat of closure. The raised funds will go towards the expensive costs of soundproofing the venue due to planning regulations.

“It was tempting, for about 3 seconds, to leave our 42-day crowd-funding campaign open,” said Cherry owner and booker James Young. “But we hit our target and the right thing to do was to close down the campaign straight away with a smile on our faces, joy in our hearts and immense gratitude to all the music loving public who have generously contributed just under half the money we need to immediately commence soundproofing works in AC/DC Lane.”

The venue set up the Save The Cherry Bar crowdfunding campaign yesterday, asking the live music loving public to help raise the necessary funds to commence work on the sound-proofing so they can avoid noise complaints and are able to continue to operate as a 7-night-a-week live music venue.

Punters who pledged to the campaign were awarded a wide selection of items, including T-shirts, named “bricks” in the soundproof wall, a 7-track digital EP and medallions for annual and life-time free entry to Cherry Bar.

The pledge came the same day as Melbourne live music industry lobby group Save Live Australia’s Music (SLAM) accused Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy of dragging his feet on promised reforms to the live music scene and delaying the implementation of the Agent of Change principle to help protect live music venues from noise complaints.

“Cherry is numbed by this overwhelming public support and hopes this success sends a message to the world that people love and cherish live music and will scrape and fight to protect what they love in the face of rampant soulless residential development and the lack of meaningful support and real protection from authorities,” added Young. “Let there be Rock.”

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