5. When Night Fails? Wellington’s Night-Time Culture in Flux

This chapter explores the different ways in which two music venues have learned to negotiate with different constituencies in the Wellington, New Zealand. From local neighbours to the Wellington City Council, how the owners of these venues have dealt with what are described here as informal and formal relationships demonstrate the manner in which the night-time economy of contemporary Wellington operates as an ambiguous space. Drawing from interviews with the owners and promoters at two established venues on how a notion such as urban amenity operates according to often capricious interpretations opens up a discussion on the city’s night-time economy and the owners’ complicated orientation towards “neighbourliness”.