New look who dis? What’s new at Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane

New look who dis – what’s new at Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane

Happy unbirthday to us – it’s been eight years since we started this as a tiny humble blog, and three years since we launched our Subscriber Newsletter. It’s been a wild ride and the past few months we’ve been dreaming about the next level up. It’s high time for a glow up.

We would like to invite you to check the all-new-look Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane. A bright and fun new space, you can expect to see our regular offerings of loads of reviews of all your fave events, plus a heap of new editorials and fun new opinion pieces.

The most exciting new innovation though is our What’s On in Brisbane Calendar. There really is no where to go to find out about the performing arts in Brisbane – that is, until now. The other event calendars and online magazines are filled with restaurant openings and huge international tours, smashed with paid editorial and favouring the largest events (and wallets). We’ve always been about the local and the indie, the underground and the homegrown, the arty and the enfant terrible, the community vibes and hometown heroes. We’ve made a place for the theatre lovers, the circus fans, the burlesque superstars and the dancing maestros to gather and flaunt their wares and check out each other’s gigs.

We’ve introduced a sliding scale of fees to cover the administration and support our paid writing team. You’ll notice that it is tiered; First Nations, Trans and Artists with Disability pay the least, Independent and Emerging Artists take the second tier, and Professionals, Companies & Venues take the top tier. It’s still cheap, even at the top tier.

Why now? Why paid? There is a crazy amount of demand for arts writers. Over the last year we have been inundated with requests for reviews. We can currently only afford to pay between four and six reviews a month. Sometimes we get ten requests a week, or more.

Although we have always been hesitant to introduce paid elements and advertising to our site, we are ready to change our direction and create some income streams. Hopefully this allows us to earn enough income to take the project to the next level, by employing more writers and paying them better. Our dream would be to attend every invitation! We are also hoping to make some administration money – did you know that for the past eight years and for more than 600 published pieces of criticism, our editorial team of Adam Wood and Nadia Jade have not taken any wages, but have only hosted the project for love and art? If you think we’ve done a good job and want to see this project thrive, please consider joining our subscribers here on our monthly newsletter.

We are also looking at introducing some limited advertising around the site. We are in no hurry to become a flashing hub of gifs and free-for-all clicks, but we need to make this viable, the demand is too strong, we want to serve the hungry artists of Brisbane. So stay tuned, this might the perfect way to get our fancy arty eyeballs on your special arty gig.

Around 2,500 people visit our website every month. Last year, 26,000 people visited the Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane website. This is an amazing place to host your gig, where people like you come to check out what people like us like to make and see. As a special introductory offer, for the months of August and September all What’s On Listings are 50% off. So show us what you’ve got! And see you soon at an arts gig in the town where nothing ever happens…

Check out What’s On and List an Event