One of the Advantages of Living in a Major City in Australia

Last week I wrote a post about how well some of Australia’s regional towns and cities fared in the Suncorp Bank Family Friendly Index. The post was called There’s more to Australia than Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

And they did do well, there certainly are many advantages in choosing to live in one of these places, top of the list probably being less traffic and cheaper housing. But there are also disadvantages and over the weekend I had a very good reminder of what one of them is.

“What did you do over the weekend Bob?”

Yes, I went to the Brisbane Comedy Festival.

It’s not overly important who I went to see, but I’ll tell you anyway. It was Paul Foot, an English comedian who you may remember from my post called English in Australia: Does UK Humour Work Down Under?

He was performing his show called ‘Hovercraft Symphony in Gammon # Major’

And yes, UK humour does work down under, he had us in absolute stitches of laughter. The point is though, had I been living in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, the winner of Australia’s most family friendly city, I would not have been able to see Paul Foot.

There are some other acts I would not have been able to see if I’d been living in Wagga Wagga which I was able to see living here in Brisbane. Here are just some of them:

• Eddie Izzard
• Bill Bailey
• The Fall
• Public Image Ltd (PiL)

Mrs Bob (I was busy) has seen Lady Gaga and Robbie Williams; all of these acts have played live here in Brisbane.

Back to Paul Foot, only four of us went, so we all got in the car and we were there within 45 minutes, parked up right in the car park of the Powerhouse.

We got there in time to have a drink before the show started at 7:15 PM, we had a drink after it finished, and we were home before 10 o’clock at night.

A perfect night out.

Wagga Wagga

Had we been living in Wagga Wagga, then our best option to see Paul Foot would have been to drive the 900 km round-trip to Melbourne and back or we could have chosen a similar five hour-ish each way journey to Sydney to see him.

Not so perfect.

Where else in Australia can you see Paul Foot? Well, last week he was at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and he has one gig in Perth before he returns to the UK. In terms of population, that is Australia’s top five cities.

And that’s the problem you would have had with all of the above artists, they usually only play the major cities in Australia.

Let’s be specific

Yes, let me tell you precisely where the rest of the above artists went during their tours, that way you can see for yourself how it works.

PiL and The Fall

They each just played Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

Lady Gaga and Robbie Williams

They played the above three cities plus Perth.

Eddie Izzard

Strangely he didn’t go to Melbourne, he played Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra.

Bill Bailey

He went everywhere Eddie went, but he did go to Melbourne and additionally Hobart, Launceston and Newcastle.

The real exception was Ross Noble who toured Australia on his motorbike rattling up 85 gigs in five months, so I’m pretty sure I would have been able to see him in Wagga Wagga. But Ross Noble is not the norm, and I mean that in more ways than one. If you’ve seen Ross, you’ll know what I mean.

Time for a quick price comparison

Back to Paul Foot again. He will be touring in the UK when he returns and on May 7, he will be performing in Guildford, which allows me to do a quick price comparison.

$34.00 in Australia versus £15.75 in the UK, both including booking fees.

Nothing in it.