Why Does it Feel Like Everything is Dying in New Zealand?

Last month, New Zealand Fashion Week 2024 was cancelled. And sure, not everyone cares about fashion. Sure, you could call it an often-reductive, rich-kids-showing-off-their-“jobs” convention. Sure, it’s fair to say that for most New Zealanders losing out on Fashion Week won’t be encouraging them to give up on their lives entirely. But Fashion Week getting lobotomised is indicative of something many of us can feel but no one wants to admit: Everything is dying in New Zealand. 

Just this year, Nest Fest, Welcome to Nowhere, Beacon, 121 Festival and Splore music festivals were all either postponed or packed up for good. Making money and securing artist bookings proved too big a stumbling block. Large-scale community events like the 2024 NZ Agricultural Show, Hawkes Bay Arts Festival and Queenstown Winter Festival have also been cancelled. Even the shit your grandparents were looking forward to has died on the vine.

And it’s not just annual events that are disappearing before our eyes, either. Major local clothing designer and retailer Kate Sylvester shut down business after 31 years and fair-trade store Trade Aid closed all 24 of its shops. Wellington and Christchurch have also lost third spaces like libraries and cinemas due to earthquakes.

Nightlife staple venues Golden Dawn, The Kings Arms, Boogie Wonderland, Starters Bar and Dive were also erased from the major city streets over the last few years, and new bars and culinary hotspots have opened and closed their doors in quick succession.

So, where is there to go when you want to roll out of bed, morning or night, and do something? 

Of course, there are always things going on, from Eyegum Wednesdays in Pōneke to weekly drag shows to pub quizzes all over the country to Tāmaki’s Filth club nights. 

But that doesn’t quell the pervasive feeling that so many places and spaces are disappearing. Why does it feel like there’s no cool shit left to do?

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic left many businesses unable to reopen or offer the same hours – meaning once your favourite places disappeared, few establishments have been able to replace them. 

In part, this comes down to a lack of incentive for anyone to launch a new business or event. The once-fruitful dream of opening a lucrative cafe or club feels like a complete fantasy. Success guaranteed? You wish.

On top of that, landlord relationships are tense. 28-year-old Amelia, who had previously worked as the duty manager at Auntie Social bar before it  was forced to close because the landlords didn’t renew the lease, told VICE that “landlord relationships can make or break a business”.  

Pōneke’s Laundry Bar, once one of the most vibrant features of Cuba Street after dark, infamously closed last year when their rent was raised and the bar could no longer afford to hold the property. The shelled-out venue has sat empty ever since – a painful reminder that keeping the social culture of the city alive is not a priority for property tycoons. 

And out-of-your-hands risks aside, who has the money to start a new business, let alone sustain it?

Inflation has led to higher rent costs and staff wages, as well as pushing the tax rate upward, so the young people who should be driving the culture in our cities don’t have the funds to open the spaces that could do so. 

Chris*, 28, who works in nightlife front-of-house and management in Wellington, believes there has also been a gradual shift away from bar hopping. When people are less willing to spend an evening stumbling from bar to bar,  it makes sense venues find it hard to retain the necessary foot traffic they need to stay open. 

“People in this city don't really go to venues and bars for the sake of them being places where they know there's gonna be good music and a good vibe for them anymore,” Chris told VICE. 

“There are a lot more event promoters doing club nights and people will buy a ticket to an event and go to that specifically. And they won’t float around town. They’ll be there and get their Uber home afterwards.” 

The cost of drinking at home and drinking at a bar is vastly different and young people can’t afford to spend up. The money we do have, we save, either to blow on travel or wishful thoughts of owning a home in our late 30s or 40s. 

The whole mess has left many rangatahi feeling there’s not much to keep them here – and the masses are beginning to flood out to Europe and Australia. 

In truth, this is nothing new (the brain drain is a known phenomenon in our small country), but the new record rate of 1000  people leaving the country a week is. 

18 to 30-year-olds made up 39 per cent of the 52,500 Kiwis who gapped between April 2023 and March 2024. Amid a cost-of-living crisis and unpredictable housing market, it’s somewhat unsurprising. A stable future in Aotearoa feels unattainable for many – and, while the sentiment is shared by young people the world over, trouble on our shores is likely to encourage us to try our luck elsewhere. 

There’s also a chance the pandemic impacted these booming numbers – as the usual wave of young New Zealanders setting sail each year had their lives put on hold. This left the number of people vying to leave silently building up, and now it’s blowing out. 

The recent rounds of job cuts at government agencies and within the Aotearoa media have also incentivised Kiwis to make the jump. 

Alice*, who is 28 and working in media, said cuts confirmed that she’d made the right choice to leave earlier this year. 

“Work was only a small part of my decision to leave, but that said, the media landscape in Aotearoa is on the ropes. The week that I left the country was the same week the Newshub closure was announced and Sunday got shut down… By the time I came over I really felt I’d made the right decision,” she told VICE. 

With so many fleeing to countries with greater economic potential, young New Zealanders are also being left with huge social holes to fill. According to Sam*, 25 from Invercargill, his “whole friend group has evaporated”.

“Everyone has gone overseas,” he said, “like literally every friend.”

Between watching friends drinking cava on Spanish beaches (backed by a London marketing job salary) and a lack of daily and annually held events to help us let loose, life in Aotearoa can feel a little dire right now.

Of course, we always have the whenua (land) plush with greenery and wai (water). We experience marginal struggles compared to many other nations – developed and otherwise. Unfortunately, though, the tick in your brain that begs for more doesn’t go away, even when you’re grateful for what you’ve got. 

As the last few years have shown us, change happens swiftly and unpredictably. 

“The Wellington that I’ve grown up with has always had ebbs and flows and we’ve been in an ebb for a long time. But we’ll probably see the opposite soon with venues opening up and people realising nightlife is interesting again,” Chris said. 

Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa. You can find her @rachellydiab on IG and Letterboxd and see her film criticism on Youtube.