- Challenges and barriers
Overview
2.1This chapter provides a summary of challenges and barriers to live music in Australia. During the inquiry, witnesses and submissions commonly drew the Committee’s attention to the same types of challenges.
2.2Broadly, these challenges included:
- ensuring fair competition
- increased costs and risks, especially increased insurance costs
- audiences buying tickets late and spending less
- fewer suitable places to perform live music
- workplace conditions and culture
- accessing music education and skills.
Concerns about market conditions
2.3The Committee heard that competition has increased following the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, as discussed later in the chapter, witnesses said that the costs of hosting live music have increased, potential earnings for artists and workers are too low and increased cost of living expenses may deter audiences from spending money on live music.
Changes since the COVID-19 pandemic
2.4Evidence received during the inquiry often reflected on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic (around December 2019 to May 2023) on live music in Australia. During that period, governments restricted large social gatherings.
2.5The Australian Performing Rights Association Limited (APRA) and the Australian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) submitted that since the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘there has been a loss of 1,300 venues hosting live music across the country. Crowds at nightclubs have almost halved’.
2.6The Committee heard that margins and earnings are low, while costs are rising and risks increasing. For example, Live Performance Australia said:
For a concert tour coming into Australia… the profit margins are pretty low. … So if you've… sold a lot of tickets—it might be $100 million turnover tour—out of that, if the promoter's lucky, they might pick up $3 million.
2.7Century Venues said:
Part of the problem we've got in the live music sector is that it was built in the heyday of pubs. You'd go to the pub, you'd have live music, there were no pokies and you would engage; it was your social event, it was your cultural event, it was identity driven. All these factors meant live music was part of the fabric of culture. That's now changed… and COVID sped up that change dramatically.
2.8For example, MusicSA discussed these changes:
Live music audiences have fundamentally changed, and technology and consumer trends have fundamentally changed artists' discoverability and career pathways. Audiences and consumers will not revert to previous patterns of behaviour, and venues and festivals will need to continue to adapt to changing market conditions.
2.9Furthermore, MusicSA said:
That does not negate the very real need for increased audience development, creating young music audiences for the future, or the critical need for grassroots venues and performance platforms for developing live artists and audiences, but it is time to acknowledge that new audiences are demanding new environments and new ways to experience music, and the live music industry needs to recalibrate to consumer trends and tastes.
2.10Laneway Festival discussed events open to people of all ages:
Having those all-ages crowds, I believe, is so important to building new audiences and supporting new audiences as they grow and learn and understand how to be in bigger crowds, which, post COVID, is something that the younger generation are still grappling with. They're trying to understand how to be in crowds again.
2.11Phoenix Central Park, a venue in Sydney, submitted that post-pandemic, costs for tours and concerts have increased from 30 to 50 per cent, including costs relating to transport and freight. The submission observed:
This has seen ticket prices increase markedly across the globe, with the average Australian ticket price increasing by nearly $38 between 2004 to 2019. … Touring has long been recognised as a key avenue for artists to make money and garner new fans. In the streaming age, profits made on tours and merchandise are even more crucial to an artist’s survival than previously.
2.12The submission added that domestic artists are ‘often not finding it viable to tour in the same way they did pre-pandemic’ and regional touring ‘in particular is seeing slimmer profit margins’.
Competition and market dynamics
2.13During the inquiry, some witnesses attributed present challenges to market dynamics. These dynamics included concerns that the market is dominated by a few companies with power over artists and audiences.
2.14Live Nation, a company based in the United States, owns Ticketmaster. Their main competitors are TEG Live – which owns Ticketek – and AEG Frontier, which each control about 30 per cent of the major concert market in Australia. Other ticket companies in the Australian market include Oztix, Humanitix and Moshtix.
2.15Untitled Group, an Australia festival and event promotor, said:
Escalating costs and competitive bidding wars for international talent have added further strain to our resources. … The global live music landscape is increasingly dominated by a few multinational corporations. These companies, with billions of dollars of backing, aim to control talent pipelines, making it more difficult and expensive to secure diverse and appealing line-ups.
2.16The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance said that ‘musicians are struggling to make a living in Australia’ and attributed this to competition:
…a group of just three major companies has come to control an estimated 85percent of the Australian live music market. For those companies, as opposed to musicians, live music is a very lucrative business model.
2.17The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance discussed what they described as the ‘Amazonification’ of live music:
One example of this is Live Nation, which has… vertically integrated the market so not only controls ticketing but also festivals, music agencies and—increasingly—music venues. That gives them unprecedented power over musicians and their audiences.
2.18Humanitix, a ticketing company that gives profits to charity, said that their strategy was to avoid competing with Ticketek and Ticketmaster:
The reason we were able to thrive was because we intentionally ignored the large stadium category. Now, can a business do what we did in today's landscape… Yes. So long as they adopt the same strategy as we did, which is to ignore competing with Ticketek and Ticketmaster because you'll get crushed.
2.19Supersonic Australasia, an independent promotor, discussed the commissions and fees made on ticket sales:
On most tours, if I do the average, it's around 20 per cent if it's Ticketek or Ticketmaster. The two vertically integrated promoter businesses own those big ticket companies. If I'm doing a show with Oztix, the largest independent, they're charging nine to 10 per cent on average.
2.20Supersonic Australasia said that Live Nation ‘did $18 billion worth of concerts last year globally… and is able to lose money’. In addition:
That is potentially catastrophic for audiences and emerging artists as well. It has become a non-arts-based approach. It is not people interested in the arts presenting art; it's corporates trying to treat it like any old business.
2.21The Association of Artist Managers discussed contracts that included exclusivity clauses:
The offer will say, 'From the date of this agreement until the end of our festival, you cannot play any show'—sometimes even in Australia and New Zealand—'without our approval in advance.'
2.22In addition, the clause may state that an artist cannot announce a tour during the exclusivity period. Artists or bands could sign contracts without understanding the implications:
…a contract template, which is circulated to individuals who potentially don't have representation… You're talking about bands that are doing it themselves, that have day job, and they'll say, 'Yeah, the contract's fine,' and they'll sign it.
2.23Century Venues, for example, said that the challenges are wider than issues relating to market competition:
We agree, but we see this not as a threat from one single corporation but rather as a threat of eroding our business from a range of areas. …the changing circumstances from lockdowns, lockouts and cost of living, and we're seeing the erosion from government infrastructure and funded programs.
2.24Not all witnesses agreed that market conditions are necessarily a concern. For example, Live Performance Australia said:
…we don't believe there's a problem with vertical integration of our major companies in Australia. … Consolidation occurred because the market… is global, it's highly competitive and it's highly capital intensive. If Australia wanted to retain its place in a growing global market, companies had to consolidate in order to compete at that level.
2.25In October 2024, the ABC program Four Corners reported on issues including ticket prices, dynamic pricing and monopoly powers. Four Corners said that ‘Live Nation’s scale globally is helping it edge out Australian promoters’.
Response from TEG Live and Live Nation
2.26During the inquiry, Four Corners investigated these themes in a report that characterised Live Nation as ‘tearing the Australian music scene apart’. The Committee invited TEG Live and Live Nation to respond to evidence on market dynamics and the Four Corners report.
2.27TEG Live noted that most large venues are owned by state governments and said that ‘new entrants to the Australian industry face no systemic barriers to entry in our view’. TEG Live discussed risk and who sets prices:
…the ticketing and live promotion sectors are highly competitive. Pricing and other aspects of live music events are largely driven by the artists and the venues… Promoters enter into contracts with the artist which typically involve a minimum financial guarantee and typically an additional 85 to 90 per cent share of the profit going to the artist. Sometimes there is even a greater share that is going to the artist. … We carry all of the risk and we typically receive between, say, 10 to 15 per cent of the profit.
2.28Live Nation said that Ticketmaster Australia’s ticketing business and Live Nation’s Australian concert businesses are ‘completely separate entities’. Further, Live Nation said that venues determine who will sell tickets, ‘not the promoters who hire those venues, and Live Nation, as promoter, typically has no ability to support Ticketmaster to the detriment of competitors’. Live Nation added:
Our paramount operating principle is that it is the artists who make all the key decisions about their performances. It's also the artists who retain the vast majority of a show's revenue, as they should, because they're the ones who have attracted the ticket-buying audience.
2.29Live Nation also said that ‘every artist’ has potential bargaining power:
If you haven't got a sizeable audience, you struggle to have bargaining power; if you have a sizeable audience, you have very substantial bargaining power. That's the nature of a commercial, capitalist industry. The more appeal you have, the higher your price.
2.30Live Nation described event promotion as a risky business, which encourages diversification of business activity:
…for a promoter operating in this market, there are only 27 million people in total. We are in a very high-risk business. We are guessing the level of an audience. Our break-even points on larger tours are 80 per cent or higher. If we get it wrong, we incur a very substantial loss. So we look to diversifying our business into areas like venues to reduce our risk and to better support our concert promotion activities.
2.31TEG Live added that exclusivity clauses are ‘standard practice’ in contracts. The specific exclusivities ‘will vary from tour to tour but typically would require no other shows to be announced in the territory until the guaranteed shows have been completed’. TEG live said that this is ‘primarily for the promoter’s benefit, because we have 100 per cent downside risk’.
Increased costs and risks
2.32The Committee consistently heard that live music venues, festivals and events are being challenged with rising costs since the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, attendance has reduced or become unpredictable.
2.33Untitled Group told the Committee that operating expenses have increased 30to60per cent, which sometimes means that a festival can break-even on its costs only ‘at complete sell-out or not at all’.
2.34Kicks Entertainment submitted:
Extreme rises in all operating costs combined with macro-economic factors are pushing the level of ticket sales required to cover costs beyond event capacities, causing many historically viable events to either cancel or not run at all.
2.35Social State Entertainment said:
Basically, venue costs are up and venue income is down and to keep things rolling we need support. … Issues like insurance, alcohol excise and a few others—mainly venue insurance, in particular—are crippling venues. A lot of venues within Victoria, including some that we've worked for previously, have closed.
2.36The Rechabite, a venue in Perth, told the Committee:
Costs have risen across the board, in terms of staffing costs, particularly around production and contractors that deliver live audio and lighting services, hired equipment costs and general maintenance. …there has been a huge rise in the cost of stock and product as well.
2.37Tam Boakes, proprietor of a venue called Jive, in Adelaide, said:
…we are still suffering. Cancellations and postponements are still normal… Patronage is down 30 to 50 per cent. Expenditure is down about 50 per cent. Rent has gone up. Insurance has gone up. The cost of everything has gone up. … It's just really hard. There's nothing else businesses can do to cover costs. We can't raise prices any higher. The ticket price goes to the band.
2.38Ms Boakes added: ‘I'd love to be open every day of the week with music on, but it's just not realistic or viable right now’.
2.39Supersonic Australasia said:
Theatre shows set up in places for six months, they're amortising a lot of costs, especially marketing, and they can build an energy around a performance and grow numbers over that period, if it's a good show. … With bands, we're mostly travelling around… doing one night.
2.40Other operating costs include taxes, licences and fees. For example, Jon Perring (private capacity) said:
Live music venues pay more tax, levies and licencing fees than almost any other sector of the economy. These taxes include the wine equalisation tax, alcohol excise, liquor license fees, land tax, PAYG, payroll tax, council rates, health licenses, fire levies, GST, water and waste charges, and company tax. Although not a tax, live music venues and festivals are also responsible for paying OneMusic music copyright license fees.
2.41Factors such as inflation and exchange rates may contribute to costs, particularly when goods or services are imported. The Committee heard that artist fees are usually based on the United States Dollar, which has increased in value relative to the Australian Dollar.
2.42A submission from APRA AMCOS said that financial concerns, such as insufficient revenue and high costs, were a most common reason (around 70 per cent) why venues have discontinued hosting live music.
Logistics and travel
2.43Travel costs can limit where artists or bands may choose to tour when performing live music in Australia. Vast geography, a dispersed market and the risk of losing money were among the factors discussed in the evidence.
2.44Lanie Chopping, from the Western Australia Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, said that ‘freight costs are one of the main reasons given by promoters for why artists may not choose to come to Perth on their international tour schedule.’ Similarly, MusicSA said that geographic distance creates a significant disadvantage for artists, venues, festivals and music businesses in South Australia.
2.45MusicNT discussed the high prices of airfares to Darwin or Alice Springs, asking rhetorically:
Why would I go to Darwin or to Alice Springs to see a music event when I can see an equivalent one in Brisbane and Sydney and it's a third of the cost?
2.46The Northern Territory Government submitted:
The barriers to regular touring of live music to the NT or within the NT include flight costs, accommodation costs, travel time, freight costs, and freight time, as well as a limited market size for ticket sales. It is a major challenge for the NT to provide live music across the NT, particularly the logistical challenge of providing equipment and resources to remote locations.
2.47The band Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers discussed travel expenses:
…if you were going to do a national tour of Australia, you would pretty much have to fly to every show. … Flights are extremely expensive. If you have a band of four people and you have a tour manager and a sound person and a lighting person with you, that's already a huge amount of flight costs.
2.48In addition to flights, ground transport adds to costs:
A lot of the time you need a van and an eight-seater with all the gear you have. On top of that, there is the gear to play the shows. … Again, you're paying a tour manager and a lighting person and a sound person. There are the behind the scenes people you don't see, such as our managers. Booking agents take a cut from the shows as well.
2.49The Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance said that tours are gruelling:
Touring is hard. I think there's a cultural assumption that music is an enjoyable thing to do… But, if you go on tour, you find it's gruelling. There is very little that is comfortable or reassuring about it. You don't know what audience you're going to play to, if any. You don't know if you're going to lose a lot of money.
2.50Furthermore, the Alliance said:
Sometimes you can't afford the budget and you're staying in a really uncomfortable bed somewhere. You're not seeing any of the city. … You go from airport to venue to hotel and then back to airport to venue to hotel. You're away from your friends and your family and your life.
2.51The Australian Trade and Investments Commission (Austrade) discussed domestic travel and attendance at theatres or performing arts:
It follows a seasonal pattern… with peaks in the summer months and troughs in the winter. While attendance did drop off dramatically in COVID-19, it had really begun to recover.
2.52Austrade said that the number of domestic travellers who attended a theatre, concert or other performing arts activity in the June quarter of 2024 was 2.5 million travellers, and that was 17 per cent higher than pre-COVID-19 comparisons.
Security and policing
2.53Events may require a police presence. Organisers can be asked to contribute towards this expense. The Committee heard that these costs are particularly high in NSW. For example, TEG Live told the Committee:
…the policing bill out of Melbourne might be $10,000 or $15,000. It might be $50,000 or $60,000 in Brisbane. It's up to $150,000 in Sydney. It has an enormously debilitating impact on operating events.
2.54Laneway Festival said that policing costs in NSW are about 300 per cent higher than other states, something which their submission described as ‘extreme’.
2.55The National Folk Festival discussed their security costs:
That was something which used to be done by volunteers… but is now required to be people with licences… it is a cost in the order of tens of thousands of dollars: nearly $100 thousand a year for the five-day event.
2.56In a submission, Redfern Legal Centre said that ‘ending the practice of over-policing young festival-goers’ is going to be ‘crucial for fostering a safer environment and relieving undue pressure on the music festival industry’.
Adverse weather
2.57Many witnesses and submissions discussed the losses, increased costs and impacts resulting from adverse weather conditions.
2.58For example, Tim Hollo submitted that weather events have made ‘an uncertain music scene even more uncertain’. The submission continued:
Speaking from personal experience, performing on outdoor stages in extreme heat is genuinely dangerous, potentially leading to dehydration, heat stress, headaches, tripping hazards from sweat and water on stage, and worse.
2.59The Association of Artist Managers said that when a festival cancels due to weather, the artist’s fee is forfeited:
You… have put up costs that are not refundable. It's travel costs, rehearsal costs and crew. The resolution… after some recent cancellations… is that the artist needs to have insurance, which is an additional cost now on top of what you're already putting out—to potentially insure your own fee.
2.60MusicNT said that weather during Darwin’s dry season could be variable:
Historically, if you were planning events in Darwin between May and September you could guarantee that it would just be sunshine and blue skies. I guess that one aspect is that the last few years have shown that isn't necessarily the case… I've lived in Darwin for my whole life and I still find that it gets hotter and hotter each year. …to attract people to be active in a space where it's just getting hotter and hotter is a really tricky scenario.
2.61Green Music Australia said:
…some of the reason why insurance premiums have gone up is the climate crisis. Extreme weather events are hitting countries worldwide, and insurance companies are cognisant of what's happening and adjusting their premiums accordingly.
Large insurance increases
2.62During the inquiry, witnesses often referred to increasing insurance costs. Venues and festival organisers need insurance to protects against risks such as personal injury to patrons or event cancellation.
2.63In one example, the Committee heard that a venue’s public liability insurance increased from $10,000 to $60,000 in one year. Jessie Parker, from Laneway Festival, told the Committee:
Our cancellation insurance has increased by 280 per cent in four years. We went from $138,000 in 2020 to $526,000 in 2024. …increasingly festivals are cancelling due to extreme weather events, which are becoming more common and more severe.
2.64The Marriner Group, which owns venues in Melbourne, said that their insurance costs had increased by 330 per cent over three years with all venues ‘lumped in one basket’ without individual risks being considered.
2.65The Committee heard that prices changed after the COVID-19 pandemic. The Australian Live Music Business Council said:
We've had members that have… been operating for 23 years. They have never had a claim. They were paying $10,000 a year and then post-COVID their quotes for public liability grew to $120,000.
2.66In addition, the Committee heard that there may not be enough competition among insurers. For example, the Queensland Music Network said:
The problem with the insurance industry in Australia is that so many people have left it and, in those that have remained, there is an exaggerated understanding of what risk actually looks like in that space.
2.67The Insurance Council of Australia acknowledged the increasing insurance costs as a ‘growing factor impacting the sustainability of many live music venues and events’. The Committee heard that insurance losses may explain recent increases:
Rising premiums and reduced capacity have been driven by unsustainable combined loss ratios where insurers are operating unprofitable insurance portfolios, paying out more in insurance claims than they collect in premiums. While there are now signs the market is stabilising, many live music venues continue to experience challenges obtaining the insurance that they need.
2.68In response to evidence heard during the inquiry, the Insurance Council referred to the ‘inherent risks’ of insuring live music events:
These risks include the gathering of large crowds, the service of alcohol, late operating hours, the use of staging and rigging, and a transient and mobile workforce.
2.69The Insurance Council acknowledged that limited competition could also be a factor:
Due to the specialised nature of these risks, very few insurers offer public liability insurance for large live music events and venues, and cover is typically only available internationally through the Lloyd's insurance market in London. Limited competition… can further exacerbate affordability challenges.
2.70The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said that their oversight of insurance is ‘relatively limited’.
Audiences buy late and spend less
2.71The Committee often heard that the cost of living deters audiences from purchasing tickets or spending money when attending a show.
2.72Witnesses also said that audiences are tending to buy tickets late, which creates risks for event organisers and may lead to events being cancelled. Fewer attendees means less money being made on food, drink and merchandise.
Young people and cost of living
2.73Witnesses said that young people are less likely to attend live music for cost of living reasons. For example, The Push, a youth music organisation, discussed survey findings on the relationship between cost of living and ticket purchases:
Recent data demonstrates that the percentage of young Australians buying music festival tickets has fallen sharply. Compounding these challenges are the financial difficulties faced by many young people across the country. We know that the cost of living is the No. 1 concern for young people, and that has become a major barrier to participating in live music.
2.74The Push continued:
…two in three young Australians say that attending music events is important to them and that the most common barrier stopping young Australians from attending music events is cost, followed by age, specifically the licensing that prevents underage young people from accessing live music venues, as well as location, which makes sense when we know that the majority of festivals and touring artists perform in major capital cities.
Impacts on ticket and beverage sales
2.75The Committee heard that strong ticket sales give organisers confidence that they can proceed with planned events. However, audiences are now tending to purchase tickets close to the date that a show is scheduled to occur. Event organisers must judge whether to go ahead as planned.
2.76For example, the West Australian Live Music Industry Association said:
We're seeing ticket purchasing behaviours where, previously, there would be a big spike at the beginning, a lull in the middle and a big spike towards the end. We're not seeing that big spike at the beginning… it makes them very nervous.
2.77Sally Mather, from the Marriner Group, which operates a venue called The Forum, said that late ticket sales led to shows being cancelled. In July 2024, she said that 23 confirmed shows were cancelled. She added:
We have recovered quite well in a lot of ways, but the rising costs on all sides mean that everything is super tight and everyone's risk appetite is quite low.
2.78TEG Live has observed a similar trend and linked late sales to cost of living:
That's a function… of the cost-of-living pressures at the moment meaning that people want to be sure they can afford it and that it's right for them at the time of the festival, rather than buy tickets early, load up the credit card and not be sure whether they can really afford to go at the time the show comes around.
2.79The NSW Government submitted:
Low ticket sales have been cited by several event owners as a contributing factor to cancellations. Events such as Groovin the Moo and Valleyways have both referenced poor tickets sales as a cause for cancellation. Cost of living pressures and reduced discretionary spending in the economy has resulted in greater sensitivity to live music ticket prices.
2.80However, the NSW Government submission said that an excess or ‘surfeit in the market’ could also be a factor:
This is resulting in low ticket sales and a more casual approach to festival/event going with consumers buying tickets closer to the event time, reducing the event organiser’s confidence to continue with event operations.
2.81The Australian Festival Association did not agree:
We don't have market saturation. We… have a wide and varied festival industry. The main forces that are affecting the market… are a product of federal and state laws. This includes lockout laws, lockdown laws and music festival regulations.
2.82Untitled Group said that negative media reports could be a factor:
…challenges are compounded by a noticeable decline in consumer confidence in Australian festivals. An onslaught of overly negative media stories has made it increasingly difficult to maintain trust with our community and encourage early ticket-buying behaviour.
2.83Humanitix said that consumers may also experience risks:
Consumers are having to put up with things like dynamic pricing, drip pricing, tickets being hoarded off, tickets actually going into the resale market sometimes—is what we've understood happens—and then the resale market being run by the ticketing company who then gets to double-dip on fees where they can cycle the ticket.
2.84Shane Chidgzey, owner of two venues that recently closed – The Zoo and Stranded– said that more shows would be scheduled and staff and security rostered to work, only to find that many ticket holders did not appear. He added: ‘We probably only had about 60 per cent attendance on ticket sales. They just don't turn up.’ Mr Chidgzey said:
Our venue was predominantly geared towards metal, punk, a bit heavier music—predominantly quite big drinkers That pared off massively, going from sold-out shows doing $15,000 to $18,000 to doing $3,000 to $4,000. The cost-of-living issue is massive. Discretionary spending is well on the down low.
2.85He said that The Zoo needed to make $1.2 million to keep the doors open, without considering other running costs. He added: ‘People shouldn't have to get drunk to keep a music industry alive, and that's what it is; it's a food and beverage model.’
2.86Christopher Eassey, from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, said that ‘generationally, alcohol is falling out of favour’ and the ‘rising cost of alcohol is changing use patterns’.
Merchandise sales
2.87Witnesses discussed the importance of merchandise sales, which add to earnings made from live music.
2.88The band Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers said that ‘the money you make on merchandise is the best money that you will be making on a show’.
2.89Bird’s Robe, a music business, submitted:
Merchandise sales are a crucially important form of income for most live music performers. In some cases they can form the entire profit margin of a live music concert tour.
2.90However, Olivia Hally, an Australian artist, submitted that ‘merchandise sales that once propped up live music tours are now largely undercut by streaming services’.
2.91Ruth Hazleton (private capacity) said:
Prior to the dominance of music streaming, the live music economy was being subsidised by sales of physical recorded product. For years, artists could reasonably expect 10-15% of any live audience would purchase a cassette/CD/vinyl and it wasn’t uncommon to walk away from a festival or event with double or triple the performance fee in merchandise sales. While CD and merch sales are still viable to an extent in my community, it is nowhere near the reliable source of income it once was.
2.92The Music Press said that in general, emerging artists will incur losses, something that has remained unchanged over time:
They needed to get those CDs into shops. They needed to get those CDs to the radio stations. … Even to get your video played on rage you had to send it in on a Betacam that cost $120, and you had to post it. The costs there were astronomical. By the time you work out what they made versus what they spent, they were probably making the same loss that artists today are making.
2.93In addition to pressure from streaming services, Bird’s Robe added that some venues charge up to 20 per cent commissions on merchandise sales. Bird’s Robe commented:
This is a form of cost shifting, from venues struggling under the weight of red tape of licensing, insurance premiums and increasing rents, to artists, who are also struggling with increased costs of operation.
2.94Live Nation said that merchandise commissions are now standard at large venues:
As a company, we took the position in the last couple of years that in venues up to a certain capacity we won't charge any merchandising commission at all. … We also reduced the levels of charges in larger venues that we operate. By comparison, if you, as an artist, play any of the arenas in Australia, you'll be charged 17.5 per cent of the merchandise sales you conduct there. … The norm of the industry is that merchandise and sales attract a commission.
2.95Bird’s Robe recommended that ‘Government policy to abolish or minimise merchandise commissions from venues to artists would help improve the viability of touring performers’.
Artist discovery and emergence
2.96How music is played and consumed is changing and this, in turn, has changed how audiences are likely to discover Australian artists.
Algorithms
2.97The Committee heard that algorithms – or the way computers calculate our music selections – could have a bias against Australian artists. For example, the Queensland Music Network said:
…a most critical and existential challenge we're facing is around discoverability. It is around a new generation that is not hearing Australian artists, because we've gone from discovering on radio to discovering via algorithm.
2.98The Queensland Music Network continued:
What the algorithm will continue doing, if it thinks I like something, is give me more and more of that. …there are some shocking stats about how quickly an algorithm will take you away from an Australian artist to an international artist. These systems are set up and are gamified to not help our artists.
2.99Tam Boakes, a venue proprietor, told the Committee:
If you're not in the right algorithms, it's really hard… for emerging talent to get noticed. Spotify or whatever will just pick up things you're already listening to and that you like. You're getting completely missed if you're just a local Adelaide band.
Social media and streaming
2.100In addition to algorithms, social media and access to older music has changed the pathway to discovery for Australian artists. Music Australia observed that the nature of competition has changed:
No longer are Australian artists just competing with other Australian artists. They are not just competing with other international artists that happen to have a release that week. They are now competing with every single song that has ever been released.
2.101The Australian Record Industry Association said that this is a ‘big challenge’. Furthermore, the Association said:
…the fact that you've now got almost every song ever created at the touch of a button—that is absolutely wonderful, and people are listening to more music now than they ever have—but… in that massive amount of music, how do you find the little path through for new Australian music?
2.102Arts Queensland said that on TikTok, for example, ‘you can find something from Austria as quickly as you can find something from Australia’.
2.103Dr Lachlan Goold, from the University of the Sunshine Coast, said:
…streaming doesn't pay artists; it pays the rights holders and aggregators. A small portion goes to publishers. The pie is just split so small. The record companies are making more money out of Queen than they are out of emerging artists. There's not a lot of incentive for them to support emerging artists.
2.104The Association of Artist Managers stated:
…for artists who are not signed to a major label, Spotify have a device by which you can take a reduced royalty in order to push your music more algorithmically. …it is a pay per play, because you're taking a reduced payment so that Spotify enhances the algorithmic push of your music.
2.105Music Australia said:
…we have a discoverability problem in this country. Australians are not hearing Australian music in the same way that they might have before because of the way people are listening… They've got a choice now to listen to podcasts and even watch video. …we do need to look at how the consumption, listening and discoverability is all working across both broadcast and streaming.
2.106YouTube, a video sharing website, submitted that they share revenue from advertisers and subscribers with content creators. In addition, YouTube submitted:
Creators and artists can also earn more by offering subscribers exclusive content and perks through Channel Memberships. The Shopping function enables creators to sell products and merchandise directly through their YouTube channel. Musicians, artists and performers can also sell tickets directly through the platform so that as fans are watching music videos… a link to concert tickets will appear on the video page, with the date and time of the concert.
2.107The streaming service Spotify submitted:
Live music and streaming are complementary modes of music consumption: listeners who discover artists at live events can continue to support them through streaming, providing a longer tail of income; at the same time, discovering artists on streaming platforms generates new interest… There is a correlation between the discovery and subsequent increase in streaming volumes with artists gaining new fans after live music performances at small to medium venues and festivals.
2.108Spotify noted that since commencing in 2008, streaming has steered the music industry out of a ‘crisis of piracy’ and ‘more than 80% of all royalties generated by Australian artists on Spotify were from listeners outside of Australia’.
Fewer suitable places to perform live music
2.109Finding venues to perform live music or sites to host a festival can be challenging. Issues include infrastructure costs, accessibility and regulation relating to noise.
2.110The Committee was advised that since the COVID-19 pandemic, 1,300 live music venues have closed, crowds at nightclubs have halved and ‘this is the biggest crisis to hit the live music scene in a generation’.
2.111Laneway Festival told the Committee:
There are many sites we've looked at and earmarked. Then, as soon as we go to state government or the local council responsible for looking after them, we're told, 'No, that's not approved for major event usage.' There's an attitude that we're not considered to be contributing to the community, without really understanding or acknowledging how much we can contribute to the community in the area and the local economy.
2.112Bega Valley Shire Council said that venues could be ageing:
In the Bega Valley we have… 17 community halls, which are often used for live music. … There's definitely scope to improve our halls to be live music venues. They're all very old, so they're not necessarily set up for live music. They may not have the sound equipment or the lighting or the soundproofing.
2.113The ACT Government told the Committee that in Canberra, ‘noise complaints present a real issue to small businesses and prevent them sometimes from getting musicians and live music in.’
2.114Ben Skinner (private capacity) said:
… the industry is not growing due to overt government regulation administered by local councils, manifested through woeful problem-solving ability for prospective event producers to use council facilities as well as overwhelming red tape to establish a permanent commercial live music venue. Entrepreneurs are forced to spend significant capital or time to submit numerous documents to abide by these gatekeeping regulations.
2.115He continued:
In regard to potential live music venues, over a dozen commercial real estate properties in Springwood, New South Wales, are vacant, and many have been vacant for over a year. This is a bad look for the community and a horrendous squandering of resources.
2.116ei Productions said that poker machines make more money for clubs than live music:
…back in the 1980s…You'd work every night and twice on a Sunday, pretty much. I've just seen it change. A good case in point up here is the Central Coast League Club, which is a monster club with a monster auditorium, and was once a regular stop for local and international bands. Clubs now run on poker machines.
2.117Joseph Flack, an amateur musician and ‘big supporter of live music’ commented on the Caloundra Music Festival’s 2024 cancellation due to rising operating costs and cost of living pressures. He submitted:
If live music venues and festivals only look at their own profits and ignore community benefits, then the entire live music benefits have not been evaluated sufficiently. The benefits to the surrounding community should also be considered.
2.118Artback NT said:
There are so many challenges, but the benefits are really felt straight away. You can see it if you go to a music festival in the NT in any community. The support for the acts that tour there is like beatlemania, really. We toured a band last year called Eastern Arrernte Band, who are from Santa Teresa in the desert. We took them across the NT for a three-week tour. They were travelling via two vehicles, and everywhere they went, everyone knew all the words to their songs.
2.119The National Folk Festival submitted:
Very few community festivals receive regular and/or significant funding from the Federal Government. In some cases, State, Territory and local governments are more responsive to the needs of live music festivals but this support varies significantly between events and jurisdictions.
2.120The National Folk Festival added that ‘very few community festivals are for-profit organisations’ and instead they ‘rely almost entirely on ticket sales and armies of volunteers to survive’.
Accessibility and safety
2.121Venue accessibility and safety can be factors that deter young people from attending live music. The Push submitted:
Access to live music events is not a reality for all young people in Australia. There are fewer events in regional and outer-suburban areas, many events come with unaffordable ticket prices, and rarely are live music events staged for underage audiences or designed to be accessible and culturally safe.
2.122The Push added:
Feedback from young people highlights the critical role that access, diversity, representation and inclusion play in their perceptions of cultural organisations and their purchasing decisions. Young people want to see themselves represented on stages, reflecting the diversity of voices in their community.
2.123Charlie Pierre (private capacity) said:
One of the biggest challenges is the absence of small venues and spaces that encourage young people to be engaged in live music, whether that be as musicians performing at open mic nights or at small curated festivals, or as crew and audience members that have opportunities to come and see young talent. There's a real absence of these venues that allow people to come together within the context of a safe space.
2.124Arts Access Victoria said that venue access and wheelchair accessible bathrooms can be a barrier. This makes clear that ‘the space isn't made for you, because there's no ramp, the lights are too bright or there are flashing lights’.
Infrastructure
2.125Venues and festivals need various infrastructure for hosting large gatherings of people, such as toilets and sewers, rubbish disposal, access roads and temporary or possibly permanent structures.
2.126Winarch Group discussed infrastructure requirements:
…you need the infrastructure for artists and performers to deliver their performances. Whether it's for 50 people or 30,000 or more, you need that infrastructure. Touring and providing events is very costly, so the more permanent versus temporary infrastructure you have, the less costly it is to run those tours....
2.127Dr Lachlan Goold told the Committee:
…there are issues with infrastructure and venues. The regulation for a venue to put on live music is quite onerous, and for a lot of them it's just easier to either have pokie machines or put on light music rather than have someone playing acoustic guitar at a dinner time.
2.128Untitled Group said:
We… contend with substantial investments required for infrastructure development, including the maintenance of festival sites, external roads and telecommunications systems. These investments in regional communities are rarely subsidised or supported externally.
2.129Wide Open Space Festival, from the Northern Territory, discussed how infrastructure limits potential growth:
…we used to get NT major events funding, which is focused on growth. We had prescriptive grants that said you had to spend X amount on marketing, you have to demonstrate growth of the event, and we were consistently growing up until we had this big event where nearly everybody had been through lockdown in 2020 and 2021, and came out to Central Australia, but sort of over-inflated our numbers and pushed our systems to the point where we've found, 'Oh, we need to invest to grow'—the toilets, the bar, more staff, more volunteers, more parking, all those sorts of things.
Workplace conditions and culture
2.130The Committee heard that while some artists or events are successful and aim for high standards, working conditions can be poor, earnings low and that the culture in some live music workplaces deters participation.
2.131Rod Davies (private capacity) submitted:
The number one concern amongst emerging musicians is fair pay. Guaranteed fees for live performance are scarce and payment is often tied to ticket sales, or even worse, bar takings. In 2024, it’s unethical for a three-piece band working in a professional live music venue to only be offered a percentage of the bar takings as payment, yet this happens. … Many artists currently go to work not knowing if they will break even.
2.132The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance said that around half (49 per cent) of musicians earned less than $6,000 per year and many had other jobs to supplement their income. Furthermore:
The main source of revenue for Australian musicians is live performance. Unfortunately, work in this sector continues to be characterised by low rates of pay, inconsistent work, delayed payments, wage theft, a lack of superannuation, and the widespread expectation that musicians will play unpaid gigs in return for ‘exposure’.
2.133Support Act, a charitable organisation that provides crisis support for the music industry, discussed the results of a survey they conducted on challenges of working in the sector:
…68 per cent said the cost of living, perhaps not surprisingly. Another 57percent said the low level of income from working in the creative industries, and, perhaps as a subset of that, 20 per cent of the total reported a total annual income that sits below the poverty line for a single working person. Fifty-two percent said burnout and fatigue, and 43 per cent said job insecurity and also the lack of opportunities due to external impacts like venue closures and festival cancellations. … And 43 per cent said the high cost of doing business.
2.134ei Productions, which provides technical equipment to festivals and shows, discussed the informal nature of their work and contracts:
The production side of it is fairly maverick. … it's virtually impossible to get any promoter to sign a contract or an agreement or a cancellation policy… Usually we start to talk about money changing hands a week out, where we say, 'If something happens here, we've spent money on people prepping the gear and putting things together.'
2.135Furthermore:
It also affects the industry as a whole. …with Splendour in the Grass falling over there was a knock-on effect that rippled around the industry of tours and shows being cancelled, but it's more the individual guys who are out of work… They have the gig economy type thing going on and they need that money, then suddenly it's gone and there's no recourse for them.
Workplace culture
2.136Some witnesses described potentially concerning characterisations about the culture in the live music industry.
2.137In a survey, Support Act found that around 54 per cent of respondents reported ‘high or very high levels of psychological distress’.
2.138Dr Catherine Strong, from RMIT University, said that while ‘things have been improving’ for women in music, change is slow:
We've seen, over decades, things like women putting on shows where they showcase other women… running training for other women and mentorship programs. … All of these things, though, are very piecemeal.
2.139Australian Women in Music discussed travel with young children, childcare and maternity leave:
All of those things just are not available to those women. That is across the board. We also have seen situations where women have left major jobs in the music industry on maternity leave with the promise of… being able to fulfil those jobs and be reinstated. Many of those women were not reinstated.
2.140In addition, Australian Women in Music told the Committee that the music industry is male-dominated and there is an ‘alarming culture in which sexual harm, sexual harassment and systemic discrimination is very dominant across the sector’.
Finding volunteers
2.141Some festivals and events rely on volunteers. For example, the Bega Valley Shire Council, where the Cobargo Folk Festival is held, told the Committee:
…live music generally relies on volunteers so heavily, whether it's an event, a festival or even potentially just a smaller gig, there are usually volunteers that are helping set that up, make it work and I think we underestimate that at times. There is a risk that if those volunteers decide to retire or move away or have other priorities in their life, what will that mean for live music?
2.142The National Folk Festival said that volunteers are workers who need training:
If there were off-the-shelf, ready-to-go packages that supported that sort of training that could be rolled out to volunteers at our organisation or others like us, that would be a relatively low cost and simple way to support people to volunteer and help make the industry sustainable.
2.143Queenscliff Music Festival, held in Victoria, discussed the value of volunteers:
The festival emphasises community involvement, with local businesses and groups participating. We have a number of local community groups that form part of our strong volunteer basis. The festival heavily relies on a volunteer contribution to survive. It is governed by a volunteer board coming from varying areas of expertise. And the event is delivered by over 400 volunteers operating various front of house positions.
Access to music education
2.144The Committee heard that music education, skills and knowledge can be overlooked in schools and that private lessons are expensive.
2.145For example, the Australian Music Association submitted:
Quality music education is not universal in Australia. Although progress has been made… we don’t really know the extent to which students are receiving an arts education at all, the depth and quality of their arts education experience, or the resources available (and required) to deliver the curriculum.
2.146The Music Press told the Committee:
If we're going to go for incentives, if the algorithms are going to only give people what they already want, we need to get people more curious about what they don't know. That's where music education really comes in.
2.147Music NSW said:
I think it costs $30,000 to $40,000 to get your kid from beginning a lesson to maybe getting to the con or to tertiary level as a player. There is a huge barrier there for participation generally as a young artist.
2.148In addition, MusicNSW said that music is linked to knowledge about information technology:
…there's a role for our music education systems to play in making young people aware of the diverse range of careers available to them in the contemporary music world outside of just being an artist. I think there is also a role for our education system to play in contemporising the way that we give that education generally so that we're using contemporary language to talk about songwriters, not just composers, and we're talking about computers as instruments, not just violins, and electronic music as opposed to just classical music.
2.149Dr Diana Tolmie, from the Queensland Conservatorium, told the Committee:
The decline of Australian music education and public lack of respect for the music profession has a broad and direct correlation to potential diminishing cultural identity, de-skilling our future workers and, therefore, negatively impacting our economy.
2.150The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said:
…understanding notating, documenting and recording music is a musical practice that is clearly stated within the curriculum. … It is an integral part of the curriculum.
2.151Literacy and numeracy and subjects such as computing, civics and science are nationally assessed. However, the Authority said that there is not a national assessment program for music education.