Alright *deep breath*.


We've deliberately kept from uploading a video to our campaign for the last few days.


We've decided that it's about time we started doing some vlogs on the Pozible page aswell as upload a video showing who we are and what it is we want to build.


The video was deliberately shot in a single take with minimal effects and editing. We wanted it to be a simple conversation between us as two individuals and you guys and girls in the community.



Now the reason we have delayed in creating and publishing this video is we wanted you guys and girls out there in the community to get to know the Power Up Bar as an idea before you get to know us on a personal level.


It's all explained in the video!


Thanks for your ongoing support and pledges!


As always, remember to Like and Share ;)


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Jimmy our resident music man has recorded an awesome mashup of geek, nerd & gamer theme songs to commemorate the launch of our campaign!

So I'm sure most of you know about the demise of Melbourne's one and only pop-culture bar late 2013 (can't mention any name, we're not affiliated with any current or prior Melbourne bar operators).

We know a huge segment of the community was devastated to see it go, however we also know that an even larger segment of the community thought that it was probably inevitable. Not because the idea didn't work (look at Brisbane) but because the execution was wrong.

So what are we going to create? An open-source bar. The community will be our biggest inspiration and will form the soul from which the bar will draw its ideas and energy.


So who are we? We're a group of young entrepreneurs and hospitality professionals. Between us we have over a decade of hospitality experience both in customer facing roles and management. We've also got a few years’ experience in I.T and online marketing... so we think we're reasonably qualified.

"Working and helping to run Hobart's central game store made me realise quite how much the community is longing for a home. So many people would come and just hang out with us at EB, they just wanted to talk to like minded people". "I wanted to build that home, a place where geeks and nerds citywide could just come and hangout, talk about games or anime, sci-fi or technology. Now that I'm in the beautiful city of Melbourne I can see that dream becoming a reality".

But more important than that... we're nerds, and bloody proud of it!


We're currently at the early stages of development. We're putting the finishing touches on our business plan and are in talks with the various government bodies that we will have to negotiate with.

Starting a bar is not something you can just jump in to and make it up as you go. Anyone who's ever worked in the back-end of a hospitality understand the importance of preparation when so many variables are involved.

We will begin discussions with suppliers in the coming months and finish up the equipment acquisition plans towards the end of the year.

We have a large amount of personal capital coming available in December this year and this will be the catalyst for beginning physical construction of the bar.

Our plan at this point is to have a lease signed around the new year with the venue opening before autumn.


We know the Melbourne scene is there, and we know it's huge, PAX proves just this.

Now with such a huge community of Geeks, Nerds, Gamers and pop-culture fanatics doesn't it just make sense that there should be a centre for this community?

This is what we want to create. A place where people like us can go to hang out, have a drink, read a book, watch a movie or meet new friends.

We want to be the place you go to every week to play D&D, we want to be the place that you go and win awesome prizes for your amazing cosplay skills, we want to be the centre of E-sports not just in Melbourne, but all of Australia, and we want to be the place where you meet a huge group of like minded people and make a whole new circle of friends.

Lets face it... most bars suck for people like us. We sit there with loud obnoxious music blaring in our ears while keeping a watchful eye on the bogans at the next table just hoping they don't start a fight.

We want a bar for us. We want to build the hub of Melbourne's geek community. A place you'll come to in the middle of the day just as much as the middle of the night.


We have a range of events we would like to run at the bar on a nightly basis.
Each night a different event will be run. They will rotate to ensure that everything gets a go and people's favorites happen often.
Now this is where the communities involvement is essential. We can come up with some good ideas but you guys will have a million times more. Message us, Facebook us, and when we're operational come in and see us. We want ALL of your ideas.

But for now here is just a few.
Tabletop nights.
Cosplay Competitions.
TV/Movie/Anime/Gaming trivia nights.
Movie Marathons.
Gaming Tournaments.
Pub-stomps/Barcrafts.



Ok we're just gonna throw it out there... when we go out we want options other than $15 cocktails... we like a beer, cider, or even a wine.

Australia is one of the worlds leading nations when it comes to the production of craft beers and ciders.
The drinks menu will be a carefully constructed selection of 5-10 Australian and international craft beers and ciders.
This menu will rotate every month to ensure that the drinks remain fresh and everyone's tastes are being catered too. We'll have a wide range of beers and ciders from Pilsner to dark-ales, sweet ciders to sour ciders, and we'll throw in a few wildcards like micro-brew ginger beers.

We're from Tasmania originally so we've had the advantage of sampling some of Australia's best micro-brews. However we believe in shopping local. For this purpose we will be aiming to stock mostly Victorian micro-brews as well as a few national favourites.
Some of the brews you can expect to see include;

Moon Dog,
Boatrocker,
White Rabbit,
Willie Smiths,
Mornington Peninsular,
Holgate,
2 Brothers,
Bridge Road,
Mountain Goat,
Pagan,
Red Hill,
Cavalier,
And many more.

In keeping with the community driven nature of the venue we will be taking regular polls of you guys, our community, so that we know exactly what you guys and girls want us to stock.

There will also be a small cocktail menu (with cool names of course) as well as an awesome selection of spirits and nerd themed shots.

The bar will initially be focused on the drinks. However it will expand to offer a high quality tapas and snacks menu to compliment our wide range of premium quality beers and ciders.


We know there are challenges; so what are we going to do to make sure that history doesn't repeat itself?

The first one is important... and I mean REALLY important.

The bar will be a discrimination and harassment FREE ZONE!

Great lengths will be taken to ensure that the venue is the most female and LGBQT friendly environment in the city.

Girls, we (the founding team is half female) know that you're there, we know that the number of women in the pop-culture community is HUGE and growing.

You will be welcome here, you will be safe here, there will be a ZERO TOLERANCE policy on harassment of a discriminatory or sexual nature. This also goes for our friends in the LGBQT community!



Now back to the list:
1: THIS! No, not scrounging money off the community, involving the community! We want the bar to be a hub of all things pop-culture, nerd, geek, and gamer in Melbourne. We want it to be a living breathing monster created by the community Australia wide!

2: A wider focus. Previous efforts have had the crucial flaw in that they were narrow focused, aka... just for gamers. Now we love gamers... we ARE gamers. But we're also Whovians, we're sci-fi fanatics, we're cosplayers, we're wargamers and card gamers, and we're e-sports nuts! Our venue will be focused on pop-culture as an entire sub-culture.

3: A bigger venue. Now we can't mention any names... but let’s be serious... previous attempts were about the size of an X-wings cockpit. Now we can't afford to buy a hotel... so our plan is to go for a modular design. The bar will feature multiple rooms (or realms), each with a different theme. We'll have a movie and TV room for films, TV shows and Anime. We'll have a games room with consoles, E-sports streams and HEAPS OF SPACE for laptops (oh and 100Mb fibre). And of course we'll have the bar; lounges, couches, coffee tables and just heaps of room to sit and chill.

4: The atmosphere. Now I know allot of us spend allot of time in the dark, but let’s face it, dingy is not a nice place to hang out with friends. The bar will be well lit and colorful with awesome geek themed decor (think wallpaper made of posters!). There will be music (but not STUPIDLY LOUD) and screens to just hangout and watch stuff. The game and movie rooms will be cordoned off to provide as much sound proofing and light isolation as possible. However we are aware of safety concerns regarding dark rooms and alcohol.

5: Oh yeah... and we will be open late. This is something we are not willing to compromise on and will not be opening until we can secure licencing until at least 1AM.


We're going to create an ecosystem for the pop-culture community. An environment that you will want to visit 7 days a week; morning, afternoon or night. It isn't just a bar with games or anime. It will be the home of all things geek throughout Melbourne.


Although $5000 is our minimum goal, our dream is to reach a higher amount that will allow us to launch the bar at the amazing level of quality we want to deliver. 

Our ultimate wish is to reach our $15,000 stretch goal. Anything after that point will be going towards fast tracking the development of our kitchen which we hope to have up and running as soon after opening as possible.


We are genuinely wanting feedback from the community. What do you guys want to see? What do you think we could improve? All suggestions will be taken in and used!

Now the campaign campaign has two goals. The first is obvious; we have plans in place to raise about $50,000 through our own contributions and through capital raising efforts, but this isn't enough. Funding to build the bar and keep it running until our break even point is reached is projected at somewhere around the $65-85,000 mark. Direct contributions to this capital is an obvious goal of the campaign.

But there's more.

This campaign in addition to our Facebook page is forming a key part of our market research. If we see sufficient levels of interest in the campaign, even if it's just $1 pledges, we will build the bar!

However, if we see no support on our campaign or our Facebook page it will be a significant blow to our ability to raise capital and convince investors that there is a viable market.

So please, even a $1 pledge will make a difference, and if you can't pledge then please like our Facebook page!
Jump onto our Facebook page; www.facebook.com/powerupmelbourne and like the page + shoot us a message with suggestions and feedback.

Where the funds will go:
As it stand's we've organised the raising of roughly $50,000.
This will be enough to build the basic elements of a bar, lease the building, buy a few TV's and consoles and pay the bills for a month or two.

So what we have is a minimum viable product.

We want more than that.

The number 1 reason for new business failure is under-capitalisation. We need enough funds to pay the bills until the business gets up and on its feet.

The funding from this campaign will be going towards turning a 'pop-culture themed bar' into a living breathing ecosystem designed to sustain the nerd community of Melbourne.

Now $10,000 is the MINIMUM we require in order to do the developments to the bar that we need. Have a look at the following goals and help us build a centre for all things nerd, geek, and gamer in Melbourne!

If we raise $10,000: The funding will be going towards the purchase of additional TV's for the bar area, the venues decor, and a few extra couches , tables and benches for the bar area.

If we raise $15,000: $5000 will be going towards a second bar station so that we can expand our range of beers on tap from 4 to 8 at any one time.

If we raise $20,000: We will put $5000 into purchasing additional TV's, Consoles, Games, & DVD/BluRay's for the Gaming and Screen rooms.

if we raise $30,000: We will put $10,000 into geek themed entertainment for the bar. This will include our arcade machine drink tables for the booths and some classic arcade machines for the bar area.

If we raise $50,000: The kitchen will be fast tracked. $20,000 will go towards fitting out a small commercial kitchen hopefully ready for opening night. The kitchen will serve a range of premium quality snacks and tapas.

So what are the risks and challenges? Well there's a few, which is why we need your help.


Market size: Well we know the markets there, the success of similar bars in other cities proves that. The onus is on us to build a venue that you guys will enjoy and want to come to every single night. For this we need your help and feedback.


Capital: We're not rich... that's just a reality. At present we have in place plans to raise roughly half the capital we believe we will need in order to build the bar that you guys want and to pay the bills until it can support itself. Now we're confident we can find the rest, but the more we can raise the more awesome things we can have in the bar.