Popular Australian live music venue HiWay located in Enmore, Sydney has permanently closed due to a large amount of debt.
“HiWay has closed. Thank you to the artists and patrons who supported us,” the venue’s website simply reads.
The establishment owed $160,000 to 15 creditors, and has been put in liquidation with Steven Kugel and Scott Howell from Insolvency Experts appointed to take care of it.
“Prior to our appointment the landlord had taken possession of the property so it’s all over,” Howell told news.com.au.
He added: “The accounts show the director is by far and large the biggest shareholder owed around $360,000, so his debts are almost double the other creditors,” he said.
Howell told the publication that the shutdown of HiWay isn’t necessarily linked to the pandemic losses live music businesses experienced during the height of COVID.
“I know there have been sustained losses over the past three years. I don’t know whether Covid had a factor to it all, in those years where Covid was around it was making losses but that doesn’t mean it was Covid.
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“I really don’t know what happened yet. We have only been in a week so that’s part of our investigations to determine what’s happened.”
Howell of Insolvency Experts explained that there was nothing “strange or untoward” that caused the business to shut down.
“It’s your typical company that had sustained losses and it was supported by directors and shareholders and they had had enough or they run out of money and were not going to support it anymore,” he noted.
During their time open HiWay welcomed a range of live artists including The Shadow Ministers, Sarah Jane and Phantoms.
HiWay is just one of many live music venues in Sydney that have recently shut their doors, and join Frankies Pizza in Sydney CBD and Lansdowne Hotel in Chippendale.
For more on this topic, follow the Live Music Observer.
