About this independent guide

This site occupies a domain that once spoke in a civic voice. The rebuilt site keeps the memory of that archive as information architecture and drops the impersonation. We are an independent editorial project.

What “independent” means here

Independent means we do not issue permits, award grants, hire halls or speak for the Lord Mayor. The City of Sydney remains the municipal publisher for its own cultural programs.

Independent also means we do not copy archive text. Every sentence on the kept paths is new. That is slower than scraping. It is the job.

What happened to the old pages

Clean heritage hubs — design, blog, Art & About, city art, creative spaces, libraries, policy, programs — stay on the same path with new writing. Messy query permalinks, embed wrappers, tags and parked search URLs are redirected or excluded.

A full old-to-new map lives in the repository documentation and in the pull request that shipped this rebuild. Unknown addresses 404 on purpose, with the same footer disclaimer you see on every page.

Editorial rules you can hold us to

No invented prices, hours, operators, rankings, awards, events, statistics or quotes. No republished named profiles from the archive. Careers and grants sentences link to Create NSW and Creative Australia only.

When we mention a fact that belongs to an institution, we link the institution. If we cannot link it, we do not say it.

Who to write to

Questions about this guide go to contact. Questions about rates, parking, rangers, library fines, venue hire or official programs go to the City or the relevant agency.

The old /about/whos-who/ path redirects here because this rebuild will not restore a staff directory we do not operate.

How a visitor should use /about/

If you arrived at “About this independent guide” from a search snippet or an old bookmark, treat the URL as a reading room rather than a service counter. The kicker on this page is “About”, which is a filing label, not a promise that a person will answer the phone. Read the opening answer, then open one official link, then decide whether you still need this essay. A visitor who only wants a time, a price or a vacancy should leave immediately for the operator. A visitor who wants to understand how Sydney’s creative life is organised can stay and use the method. Related paths on this rebuild include /contact/, /policy/, /blog/. They are siblings, not extra ticket sellers. If you are on a phone in a park, screenshot the official page, not this one, before you lose reception. If you are planning a class visit, assign the official page as the primary text and this page as the secondary commentary. That order matters: students should learn who has authority before they learn how an independent desk writes about authority.

How a worker or student should use /about/

Workers in arts, design, music, festivals, libraries and venues already know that a heritage blog can waste a morning. Use /about/ as a filter: it tells you which facts this rebuild will not invent, and which official doors still exist. If you are writing a grant, stop reading us and open Create NSW or Creative Australia — those are the only funding links this site will give you. If you are writing a studio brief, write the activity first and the suburb second, then verify the room with the person who has the keys. If you are writing an assignment, cite the official PDF or collection record and mention this domain only as an independent commentary. The first FAQ on this page is “Is creativecitysydney.com.au an official City of Sydney website?” and the first-sentence answer is: No. This domain publishes independent information and is not operated by the City of Sydney. Keep that answer-first habit in your own notes. It is how this whole rebuild stays citable. Do not paste our sentences into an application form. Assessors can search. So can we.

What the archive on /about/ used to do — and what we refused

The historic Creative City Sydney site mixed municipal program copy, blog features and, later, parking junk. A URL like /about/ may once have spoken as if the author sat inside Town Hall. This rebuild keeps the clean path because incoming links and memory still use it, and because a real 301 is better reserved for messy query strings and embed chrome. We refused to copy archive sentences. We refused to republish named people’s profiles or words. We refused to keep an expression of interest that had already closed. We refused to rank artists, venues or “must-see” shows. We refused to quote a price, an opening hour, a visitor count or a dollar figure that we were not looking at on a primary page. If you remember a sharper, more official tone on this slug, that memory is about a different publisher. Say so when you cite the history of the domain. Do not say this desk is the City.

A working method you can reuse after you close the tab

Write the question you actually have in one line. If the question contains a date, a fee, a vacancy or a person’s job title, you need an official page, not “About this independent guide”. If the question is about how a system works — outdoor civic art, licensed music, library membership, cultural-policy documents — stay and steal the method, then go to the source. Keep a folder of official URLs rather than a folder of screenshots of this domain. When a search engine still shows a 2014 title for /about/, believe the rewritten page and the official outbound link, not the snippet. When you see a parking-era advertorial in the wild, do not feed it. When you need to correct us, use the contact form and include the official source that proves the correction. That is the entire quality bar this rebuild can keep without pretending to be a newsroom.

What this page will never invent

On /about/ we will not invent a festival program, a studio vacancy, a hire rate, a lockout date, a grant deadline, a ranked list, or a quotation. We will not invent an operator for a civic hall. We will not invent a First Nations interpretation. We will not invent a staff directory. We will not invent a busking permit. We will not invent a Chinese New Year route or a NAIDOC stage time. We will not invent a library fine or a Wi-Fi password. Those refusals are repetitive on purpose. Repetition is how a rebuilt civic blog stays out of court and out of embarrassment. If a paragraph on “About this independent guide” ever sounds like a booking confirmation, it should be deleted in the next edit.

How this page stays honest

If a page on this site ever sounds like a council notice, it has failed its about page. Send us a note and we will rewrite it toward independence.

Sources and next clicks

Primary doors used on this site: Create NSW, Creative Australia, the City of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, State Library of New South Wales, and the Sydney Opera House. Festival producers publish their own editions. If a fact is not on those sites, this guide does not invent it.