Meet the creative agency embedding First Nations culture into NSW’s late-night landscape: Awesome Black

One of the strategic pillars of the 24-Hour Economy Strategy, updated in 2024, is Authentic Storytelling. Working with Awesome Black is a key step in embedding First Nations storytelling in NSW nightlife.

The Office’s first collaboration with Awesome Black was in February 2025 at the Yours & Owls music festival. The festival was a resounding success and saw a huge increase in First Nations representation among artists, and the establishment of the Respect Country installation. It marked the beginning of an exciting lineup of upcoming industry activations and collaborations led by Awesome Black.

We sat down with Travis De Vries, Awesome Black’s founder and executive director, to learn more about his work, and how his agency is helping to amplify First Nations culture, storytelling and creativity into NSW’s late-night landscape.

How did Awesome Black begin?

I’ve worked in some of the major NSW cultural institutions...and been an artist and creative in my own right before that. The impetus for Awesome Black was to build something that sort of made me feel better about my place in the world, or in the industry, but also be able to have a bit more creative freedom. I was like, let's just make cool things we like that happen to have Blackfellas attached to them, not the stuff that's necessarily going to get programmed, and then we'll build an audience for that, and we'll get programmed anyway.

“It would be very cool to have a Blackfella-owned bar or venue in every District across the state.”

What have you been working on with the Office?

We kicked things off with the Yours & Owls festival, which was obviously a big moment and a really good publicity moment: lots of colour and light, lots of people, lots of great artists, lots of great photo moments. But I think the real success is going to be as we see some of these other smaller events run out, where we see local artists engaging with precincts [across the state] directly.

What excites you most about the late night or cultural offerings in New South Wales right now?

Really, it’s the diversity of it, particularly around Sydney. Being someone who's not in Sydney [De Vries lives in Maitland, New South Wales] but who is coming more and more, the after dark offering around Sydney and New South Wales is just incredibly vibrant.

There is something for everyone. If you're into sports, if you're into music, if you're into this sort of food or that, we have it all. We are spoiled in New South Wales and Australia - it's wild how much we take it for granted. Obviously, there’s the cultural cringe thing in Australia, but Blackfellas have this oldest living culture, and people need to get behind it in the right way.

What are some of the key challenges for First Nations artists?

There are so many things. There are so many layers to being an artist... and how a First Nations artist markets themselves to an audience is so incredibly layered and challenging. It’s just not something a non-Indigenous artist ever has to think about, like, how do I incorporate my culture into my artistic identity, and what will be the outcome of me doing that? And, like a lot of Blackfellas, we’ve had the layer of the Stolen Generations, so some artists haven’t had that access to that culture [either].

Those are fairly complex things. But that's just scratching the surface. These are conversations that mob artists have in community all the time.

What are some larger shifts in the industry you would love to see? What does success look like?

I would love to see mob being programmed culturally at all the bars and restaurants across the Districts without Awesome Black needing to be involved... that we help these artists and businesses and Districts build relationships with each other, and those continue [without us].

My long-term goal is to open a venue that is First Nations owned and run. Building on the taste that audiences have for this stuff and want to see, but doing it our way. It would be very cool to have a Blackfella-owned bar or venue in every District across the state.

What other collaborations have you had with the Office since Yours & Owls 2025?

[The Inner West Country Fest was] a really, really cool event. It's a collab with the Inner West Ale Trail District and Young Henrys. We're doing a little bit more of a country music-themed offering, and throughout the day at Young Henrys [we put on] on weaving workshops as well as musicians. We're also working with Brookvale Arts District to put on something really, really cool. I can't wait to chat about that more.

Visit the Awesome Black website to learn more.

To discover how the 24-Hour Economy Strategy is working towards embedding First Nations storytelling in the night-time economy, explore our strategy.