Struggling against the pop-up Adelaide Festival and Fringe Festival venues, the closure of prominent Adelaide pub The Stag is a sombre blow to the once prosperous drinking hole.
Receivers took over Adelaide's East End The Stag recently but it kept trading until the doors finally shut last week, prompting anger from some event organisers who already had paid for future events bookings at the venue.
Australian Hotels Association Chief Executive Ian Horne discussed a range of issues on 891 ABC Adelaide last week which probably led The Stag to close, but there were no doubt factors common to other city traders. "It's an iconic premises in a key location and it's just come through the 'Mad March' period with the Fringe, with all the activities, but even that wasn't enough to sustain it... There's no one, single issue but it's an accumulation of the costs of doing business. Every year your costs go up well in excess of CPI but your revenues simply don't."
Ian says that February and March trading was particularly flat for a lot of traders in the area, the toughest they had seen in the last six to seven years. "We're now going into the cold winter months and I think there will be more casualties," Ian suggests.
First licensed in 1849, The Stag is among the Colonel Light Hotel and the Dog & Duck, who have also closed their door recently. And Ian is pointing most of the blame at the Fringe and other festivals. "The fascination of the city council in creating the biggest pop-up [venues] in the country during February-March [let] multi-million-dollar businesses drain the entire hospitality sector in the city and suburbs.
"The sort of revenues that are generated in alcohol sales and things like that at the venues in Victoria Square, the venues in the east parklands ... these are significant venues that run for 30 days, with multi-million-dollar sales... They're extraordinarily popular but we've reached a tipping point...The newest thing is the most popular, no doubt, but our problem is the Fringe in particularly is predominantly a domestic market and there is a level of cannibalisation going on here."