New Zealand lost its music media, and what we're building to replace it

In the 3rd week of June 2026, 2 announcements landed connected Karangahape Road wrong hours of each other. Flying Out, the grounds shop that had anchored the portion for 11 years, said it was done. Then Neck of the Woods, the basement venue that launched a decade of Auckland physics careers, posted that aft 11 years of fighting expanding debt, it had reached the end.

The organization refused to judge the 2nd one. Nearly 3,000 people, including The Beths, put $150,000 into a Givealittle page successful nether a week, and Neck of the Woods reopened successful July. It was a uncommon triumph successful a bad run. Verona went into liquidation successful April aft 34 years. Charlie's closed successful February. Bar Celeste closed the twelvemonth before. The Others Way Festival, K Road's ain thoroughfare festival, was cancelled successful May for the foreseeable future.

Here is the mobility almost cipher asked: who was covering immoderate of this?

Karangahape Road aft dark, the spine of Auckland's live-music culture. Photo: Prosperosity / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

The sum collapsed first

Before the venues started closing, the group whose occupation it was to constitute astir them had already gone.

The numbers are stark. When the NZ Herald still ran Time Out, its Thursday intermezo magazine, it had a squad of dedicated writers. The mag is gone and truthful are the jobs. Rip It Up and Real Groove, the magazines that documented decades of New Zealand music, are agelong dead. Chris Schulz, the journalist who has documented this diminution much thoroughly than anyone and who won the Taite Award for Outstanding Music Journalism successful 2025 for that work, puts it plainly: the number of euphony journalists near successful Aotearoa tin beryllium counted connected 1 hand, and location are nary full-time euphony critics near astatine immoderate awesome publication successful the country.

The Spinoff called it successful 2023 pinch a header that said the sound is disconnected for New Zealand music. Creative New Zealand's New Mirrors research recovered that arts and civilization person astir 13 percent of full media sum successful Aotearoa, against astir 25 percent for sport, and sum of creation forms extracurricular film, euphony and TV sits astatine hardly 3 percent.

This is not a New Zealand quirk. It is the section separator of a world collapse. Pitchfork, the astir influential euphony publication successful the world, was folded into GQ successful 2024 and its editor-in-chief was laid off. Local euphony property has been gutted successful the US, the UK and Australia. New Zealand conscionable sewage location first and hardest, because we were mini to statesman with.

The segment did not collapse. That's the problem.

If the euphony itself had faded, the soundlessness would astatine slightest make sense. The other happened.

New Zealand's euphony assemblage contributed $451 cardinal straight to GDP successful 2023, up from $350 cardinal the twelvemonth before, and over $900 cardinal erstwhile flow-on effects are counted. Live capacity gross reached $329 million, good supra pre-Covid levels. People are going out. Artists are releasing. On immoderate fixed play location are nine nights, storage parties and show announcements crossed the country.

And yet local artists captured arsenic small arsenic 9 percent of New Zealand streaming, download and beingness income gross successful 2024. In the charismatic end-of-year Top 50 singles chart, precisely 1 New Zealand way appeared. Radio plays section music, but only 2 nationwide commercialized stations exceeded 20 percent section content.

Put those 2 facts together and you get the existent story. The segment is live and economically significant, but it has mislaid its mirror. There is nary 1 near whose occupation is to show you what happened astatine the show past night, which section shaper conscionable signed to an overseas label, aliases why a 34-year-old venue went nether owing $692,000. When cipher documents a scene, the segment becomes invisible. Invisible artists do not get streamed, booked, aliases paid. That 9 percent is not a talent problem. It is simply a visibility problem.

K Road connected a grey day. The segment ne'er went quiet, but the sum did. Photo: Ingolfson / Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

What we're doing astir it

Propel exists to beryllium the reflector the segment lost.

This twelvemonth Propel has published more than 225 articles covering physics euphony successful Aotearoa: segment reports, creator features, arena coverage, the stories that utilized to person a location successful the thoroughfare press. More than 30 of those went up successful the past period alone. That is not a declare astir matching what six full-time Herald writers erstwhile produced. It is simply a declare that consistent, dedicated sum of this segment exists again, and it is increasing each week.

The sum sits connected apical of a level built for the group successful the scene. Propel maps much than 2,700 venues worldwide and hosts artist profiles from New Zealand and good beyond, because a section segment does not beryllium successful isolation. Auckland DJs play Melbourne. Christchurch producers get signed successful Berlin. The level treats the section segment arsenic the constituent and the world web arsenic the context.

And it is built to alteration the economics, not conscionable picture them. Every creator connected Propel gets free tools: a due profile, a property kit, a link-in-bio, a booking page. The things a explanation aliases an agency utilized to gatekeep, disposable to anyone doing the work. The sum makes artists visible. The devices make them bookable. Earlier this twelvemonth the AUM New Year's Festival recovered Propel because our sum of their arena outranked everything other successful search, and a business came retired of it. That is the loop working: sum creates visibility, visibility creates opportunity.

We are not going to dress the occupation is done. The adjacent section is making that loop salary disconnected for individual artists, first bookings, first property hits, first careers that trace backmost to being seen here. That is the activity successful beforehand of us, and we would alternatively opportunity truthful than declare it early.

As Propel's founder, a moving DJ who came up successful this scene, puts it: "A segment this bully deserved amended than a link-in-bio and a Facebook event. It deserved a home."

The portion wherever you travel in

If you are an artist, your floor plan is free and takes 10 minutes. If you tally a venue aliases beforehand events, your listings beryllium here. If you conscionable emotion this music, the sum is free to publication and ever will be.

New Zealand mislaid its euphony media. Nobody is coming to rebuild it for us. So we are rebuilding it ourselves.

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Sources

K Road closures

• NZ Herald — Neck of the Woods closing aft 11 years
• RNZ — "The extremity of our journey"
• RNZ — Neck of the Woods reaches $150k goal
• Stuff — "We are nary longer closing"
• The Spinoff — Verona ceases trading
• Stuff — Crisis hitting "one of the world's coolest streets"
• 1News — K Road business owners emotion the pinch

Journalism collapse

• Boiler Room — connected euphony publicity (Chris Schulz)
• The Spinoff — "The sound is disconnected for New Zealand music" (2023)
• 2025 Taite Music Prize (Schulz's publicity award)

Industry data

• NZ Music Commission — NZ euphony contributed $901m to GDP successful 2023
• PwC — Economic publication of the NZ euphony manufacture successful 2023 (full report)
• Creative New Zealand — New Mirrors (arts & civilization media research)
• RNZ — Discovering caller NZ euphony successful the streaming property (9% figure, floor plan & power stats)
• The Conversation — aforesaid research, original piece

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