The Sunshine Coast Night-Time Economy

This paper presents findings from the Building Sustainable Night-time Economies in Regional Australia research project. The research focused on the Sunshine Coast region’s night-time economy (SCNTE) and comprised a series of in-depth interviews with local industry practitioners, followed by surveys of Sunshine Coast residents (n=577) and visitors to the region (n=298). The research findings indicate the SCNTE is changing in ways that require careful consideration and additional research. While some components are declining, others are stable and in recent years, while some venues and events have closed others have proved resilient. To help understand these transformations, a range of local infrastructural, cultural and psycho-social elements were isolated for in-depth investigation. Various barriers and enablers, such as steep cost of living increases post-Covid, and provision or lack of provision of transport were investigated to get a sense of ‘what‘s going on’ with the SCNTE.