The Gold Coast is done with being 'the Glitter Strip', so what's next?

"The Glitter Strip" is a label the Gold Coast has been trying to ditch.

The Queensland city grew into a tourism powerhouse over half a century, gaining a reputation for a laid-back beach lifestyle.

Motels under neon lights once lined the coast, while bikini-clad meter maids posed for photos with tourists.

But that was the old Gold Coast.

"The way that the Gold Coast a generation ago talked about itself was as really fun but also fairly cheap," the city council's marketing boss Todd Babiak said.

"That's a more difficult proposition now."

Mr Babiak leads Brand Gold Coast, a council-owned organisation working to reinvent the city's reputation.

It found inspiration on the other side of the world.

Austin, Texas, underwent a transformation that saw it become an engine of the technology economy, fuelled by a "weird" reputation.

But some worry the Gold Coast, like Austin, could lose part of itself along the way.

'Keep Austin Weird'

Every year, Austin celebrates a public birthday party for Eeyore, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh.

It's held just 7 kilometres from a 60-tonne cathedral built from junk.

Willie Nelson — a legend of conservative country music yet a vocal supporter of marijuana and LGBTQIA+ rights — called the city home.

Austin also hosts SXSW, a world-renowned ideas festival that once featured a concert where patrons were encouraged to fall asleep.

"If the rest of Texas rejects you, whether it's for your political views, your sexual orientation, your background, whatever it is, Austin will take you in," Southwestern University's professor Joshua Long said.

"That's the mythology and legend around it."

Dr Long's book Weird City explores Austin's effort to maintain its eccentric character amid rapid economic change.

It centres around "Keep Austin Weird" — an offhand comment made on a community radio station 26 years ago, expressing a fear that corporate growth could turn Austin into a copy of every other American city.

"Keep Austin Weird" spread onto bumper stickers and shopfronts, morphing into an unofficial city slogan that encouraged locals to embrace what made them different.

"[Austin] does feel like an oasis, not only geographically and physically but also metaphorically, to the rest of Texas," Dr Long said.

When tech meets weird

For decades, Austin's council, universities and businesses developed coordinated policies to attract investment from the tech sector, which surged during the 1990s dot-com boom.

Tech professionals could sell their homes in more expensive cities, move to Austin and still have money left over to invest.

"Suddenly they become venture capitalists — angel investors — starting their own creative pursuits," Dr Long said.

"Rather than Silicon Valley, we became Silicon Hills."

Tech firm Dell was founded in Austin, while other corporate giants including Apple, Google and Tesla now have major offices there.

Even the world's most popular podcaster, Joe Rogan, relocated to Austin in 2020.

Mr Babiak said Austin's organically "weird" reputation also attracted many creative entrepreneurs from other parts of the US.

"If you want to launch something weird into the world, do it in Austin," he said.

"Austin was able to absolutely transform its economy around entrepreneurship … it already had that story, the DNA just needed to be uncovered."

What can the Gold Coast learn?

While Austin has "weird", the Gold Coast has "wellness".

Mr Babiak spent 200 hours interviewing locals about the "core story" of the Gold Coast.

"What is it about this place? What has it done to me and what have I done to it?" he said.

Mr Babiak said perceptions of a laid-back lifestyle became "a tension" among locals whose experience went "beyond beaches and theme parks".

"It's actually the way that they're living their lives," he said.

"They get up early and go for that walk, that surf or that run, but then they work hard all day [and] it makes them more productive.

"It's not leisure for the sake of leisure, it's leisure that does something to you — that positive transformation has an effect on your working life."

Perceptions have economic consequences

Mr Babiak said the cliche of laid-back beaches limits the Gold Coast's appeal for serious business, study and investment.

Lucrative overseas markets such as Vietnam, China and the United States had only "a vague idea around beaches" when it came to the Gold Coast.

By leveraging its film industry, Mr Babiak said the Gold Coast could become "a younger, more sophisticated, dynamic and complex economy".

"Really cool people make films, there must be something cool happening on the Gold Coast," he said.

"Creative enterprise is at its heart but can we take that strength and be really clever about it, so that it starts to pervade other aspects of the Gold Coast?"

Chris Amos lived in the UK for two decades, producing documentaries including Netflix's Hating Peter Tatchell, featuring Ian McKellen and Stephen Fry.

But he moved to the Gold Coast to build his own film studio after having an "epiphany".

"The Gold Coast was all about 'Where am I happiest in the world?'," Mr Amos said.

"I've got to follow this path."

The city's film industry has a gross value of $420 million, and has produced international blockbusters including Thor, Aquaman and Elvis.

"Overseas productions come to the Gold Coast because it's financially beneficial — we have the tools but we don't actually have the vision," Mr Amos said.

International productions have provided short-term employment, he said, but the intellectual property, which provides ongoing revenue through merchandising and streaming rights, has gone offshore.

"We're making other people's vision, which is just nuts.

"The UK, they had James Bond and Harry Potter, these movies that just keep coming around so families can have children, drive to work and they don't have to keep moving."

Mr Amos said many Australian films need government incentives to attract private funding, but the Gold Coast has the capacity and skills to make domestic films for international audiences.

"The talent drain is starting to plug up a bit, so people are staying here longer," he explained.

Vision embraced but affordability stings

The city council voted unanimously this month to endorse Brand Gold Coast's vision.

But there are challenges.

When "Keep Austin Weird" was first uttered in 2000, the city had a population similar to the Gold Coast today.

Dr Long said gentrification pushed many existing residents, especially from African-American and Latino neighbourhoods, to the city's fringe.

"If you're not taking measures to protect the existing population — who aren't benefiting from the growth but instead being displaced by it — then you're going to have a divided city," he said. 

While "Austin will always be weird", Dr Long said, its nature has changed.

"The weird is commodified, the weird's been capitalised, the weird's been monetised."

There are now about 1 million people living in Austin, a population the Gold Coast expects to reach within 20 years.

But median Gold Coast house prices have already soared by more than 80 per cent since 2020, to $1.2 million.

Mr Babiak said: "If anyone's going to solve this, it's going to be Gold Coasters.

"When you have people coming here to change their lives in a city that's open to it, you get something pretty powerful."