It seems recent efforts to re-energise Sydney's party vibes have been in vain, with the city ranking second-worst in the world for its nightlife.
The lockout laws, which were repealed earlier this year, appear to have had a lasting impact on the city after their introduction in 2014.
The Benchmarking Sydney's Performance Report looked at 800 global cities and put Sydney second last with only 32 per cent of residents rating it highly.
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This is despite the introduction of new nightlife hubs and the reduction of red tape around licensing for late-night venues.
It is however a slight increase from 2019 when we were ranked the worst city for nightlife in the world. Yay?
Interestingly, 68 per cent of those surveyed said Sydney had a crappy nightlife, while Boston took the bottom spot with only 30 per cent of punters saying the nightlife was banging.
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That is only 2 per cent less than Sydney though...
"Sydney's reputation for being a fun place to go out at night has taken a dive over the past seven years," Committee of Sydney chief executive Gabriel Metcalf told The Daily Telegraph.
"The impacts on our nightlife are starting to show up in some of the key global rankings that drive foreign investment in our city."
It wasn't all bad, with Sydney performing well in healthcare and safety, life science and student experiences.
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But we did pretty badly in housing affordability and air pollution, both of which I think we can all agree are pretty important.
In fact, Sydney was in the bottom three for housing affordability and fell 13 places to 15th out of 48 for air pollution.
It is likely the 2019-2020 bushfires impacted Sydney's air pollution scores.
Sydney came 14th out of 20 in renewable energy.
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It's almost like Australia's climate targets are pretty weak and causing lasting issues for the cities and their residents.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is very confident initiatives like the Dine and Discover vouchers will help Sydney recover from this embarrassing party score.
"The hugely successful Long Lunch event in Sydney and Parramatta last week also saw a huge response from people wanting to get out in the CBD to recover their social lives after Covid restrictions, and I'm confident this will translate into night time activities as well," he told the Daily Telegraph.
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NSW's first 24-Hour Economy Commissioner Michael Rodrigues added: "I'm excited that people will come to Sydney and NSW and be blown away by what we've been able to achieve in the pandemic.
"The best way of changing perception is to give people a good experience and Sydney is poised to do that."
Rodrigues was appointed as part of the NSW Government's Sydney 24-Hour Economy Strategy, published in September 2020, which aims to bring back Sydney's 6pm to 6am scene.
Featured Image Credit: Torsten Pursche / Alamy Stock PhotoTopics: nightlife, News, Sydney, Australia