G’day, welcome to Safer Venues WA
Safer Venues WA is a volunteer-run non-for-profit based in Perth, run by and for the community to support our nightlife economy in making Western Australian venues safer and inclusive spaces.
Website Toolkit
This website has been commissioned by DLGSC to promote and advocate safer practices in WA venues.
We’ve collated case studies from across the globe, created and collated some resources, and developed some feedback tools to help support initiatives in the community to improve our standards of social safety.
This evolving toolkit is designed to empower venue teams and open up conversations about how to make positive changes to our nightlife culture.
Our Approach, Our Pilot
Our theory of change is simple: when you are empowered, you can take action. We have been fortunate to receive support and funding from the Contemporary Music Fund to run a pilot training program in partnership with local social impact organisation, Evolve Training.
This pilot program aimed to evaluate what strategies and tools can help local venue management teams to empower themselves in preventing, mitigating and responding to instances of harassment, intimidation and assault in venues. These strategies are led by the community, for the community, and are being collated on this web toolkit to share our efforts across the sector.
Despite major COVID-19 setbacks for our venue economy, we’re immensely proud to be sharing research, advocacy and recommendations for the sector. Whilst the pilot concluded at the end of 2022, we will continue efforts in future years to support ongoing initiatives to improve our venue landscape.
Our Story
Safer Venues WA started as a backyard roundtable conversation in response to some concerning events involving bedsheets in Northbridge, way back in late 2016.
Members of the music, hospitality and events community gathered around a hills hoist (with some anzac biscuits) to have a good chat about what we want our gigs to be like.
The resulting volunteer action group has championed efforts for the last 5 years through advocacy and awareness, from a community survey in 2017 to a bespoke training partnership with Evolve Training in 2022.
See the Stats
Download the infographic from 2017 to see what we found.
