- Possible strategies to improve sustainability
Overview
3.1This chapter discusses evidence received on possible strategies (or proposals) to improve the sustainability of live music in Australia.
3.2Most commonly, witnesses recommended more government grants, financial support and related interventions to save venues and festivals. Other possible strategies included introducing a ticket levy, a voucher scheme or tax offsets
3.3Additionally, witnesses recommended relief or reform in other areas that included:
- insurance arrangements
- support for Australian artists, which could include minimum pay for musicians, Australian content quotas and improvements to event accessibility
- support for communities, networks, live music promotion and change to allow more events to admit attendees of all ages
- support for music education, skills and audience curiosity
- regulatory controls to oversee competition and artificial intelligence.
- The Committee’s views and recommendations are discussed in Chapter 4.
Government grants and financial support
3.5As discussed above, many witnesses had views on government grants and financial support for live music. The Australian Festival Association said:
I think there's a role from the federal government to lead the states from a federal arts perspective that includes guidance on the grants system, which is state based and generally focused on tourism, that doesn't support the real ecosystem of the music industry.
3.6Kicks Entertainment submitted:
The Australian live music industry requires urgent local/state Government financial support through new targeted grants and funding to help bridge the gap between rising costs and affordable ticket prices.
3.7The Australian Live Music Business Council said that the application process for grants is ‘extremely long’ with months of waiting and ‘that doesn't really enable you to plan’. The Council said that there could be a charitable institution with a representative board to decide who receives grants, which could be funded from a ticket levy (discussed later in this chapter).
3.8The Council added that ‘grassroots’ venues could be identified as being broadly eligible for grants, which could speed up the process:
It's the kind of venue that puts on live music first and foremost as its reason for being in business. It puts on original music. It has a sound system. It has sound engineers. It advertises the bands by name and promotes them. Obviously, if you're dealing with regional towns, you would need to be a little bit more lenient… By preapproving the venues, it means that the grant system can be operated very quickly.
3.9The Association of Artist Managers said that RISE (Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand) grants ‘created a false ecosystem because it was too much money and not enough oversight’. For example, Port Fairy Folk Festival said:
There's talk of overcrowding in the marketplace, yet the government is supporting new events. Not only that… several of these new events that have started with post-COVID recovery funding on the promise that they'd be around for years to come, and they've run for one year. Then, once they've had a reduction or withdrawal of that government funding, they haven't proceeded beyond that.
3.10The Festival’s organisers said that the marketplace is ‘crowded’ and ‘funnelling funds to new events is to the detriment of the existing ones’.
3.11The Australian Festival Association said that larger grants are needed:
… there needs to be a higher maximum grant. For a show like… Listen Out festival, which travels to five Australian cities and is looking at over 170,000 patrons and overall operating costs of $30 million, a grant of $100,000 doesn't make a dent.
3.12Similarly, the Hills Are Alive Group submitted that more financial support – ‘at least double’ – is needed because costs for festivals have increased:
With increased operational costs of 30-40 per cent and a weak Australian Dollar putting upward pressure on ticket prices coupled with cost of living for attendees putting downward pressure on ticket prices, festival margins have decreased to the point that many events have become too financially risky for private and community operators.
3.13The Hills Are Alive Group cautioned that ‘if significant funding is not made available in the next 3-6 months many festivals will need to cancel their shows for the 2024-2025 season and may never return’.
3.14A submission from William Street Bird, a small venue in Western Australia, noted that government grants paid to artists may not result in better audience attendance:
While this… was a step in the right direction, the outcome that we saw was artists did not have the same drive and motivation to promote their gigs, in some cases leading to poor attendance where the artist was covered financially, the venue was in terms of venue hire but was not profitable as a whole for the night.
3.15Instead, the Committee was told that grants for venues could reduce the hiring costs charged to artists:
If we could reduce that, artists could keep tickets at a price which their crowds could afford and be able to come out to multiple gigs a week and not just pick one or two.
3.16Supersonic Australasia said that pubs could be given a quarterly subsidy or grant if the venue programs original music on at least four nights of the week. However, Century Venues said that this could have unintended consequences:
…the challenge that we face in Sydney is government competition through government run programs and funded venues. … Taxpayer funds are being used to undercut venues by waiving their fees or providing irresistible offers that the independent sector is unable to compete with.
3.17The Committee heard that some groups or music genres may miss out on funding. For example, Kieren Bramham, who represented a group of independent musicians, DJs, promotors, agents and venues, said that there are limited grants for electronic music. In addition, he said grants would:
…benefit from being more focused on promoters, who in this space are the ones who increasingly book the venues, pay the artists and also book the artists. A lot of grant programs are only open to licensed venues, which excludes a lot of promoters. We also recommend a greater focus for ….audiovisual, soundproofing and the growth and expansion of venues—all these things would facilitate more individuals to go to more events.
3.18Paul Mason (private capacity) said:
…venues appear to have limited funds to spend on programming… other contemporary performance companies—dance and theatre, for example—regularly mount national tours utilising this infrastructure and accessing the significant funding available through the federal Playing Australia program.
3.19Mr Mason added that unlike dance and theatre, government funds for music tours are ‘exceptionally underutilised by the music industry’.
3.20The African Music and Cultural Festival submitted that funding will ‘often exclude’ multi-disciplinary events. The submission said:
Despite live music being a central component, our broader cultural scope precludes us from many live music funding opportunities.
3.21The submission recommended that live music funding be expanded ‘to include free, community-focused events that incorporate live music as a primary feature’.
3.22The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts had a grants program called Revive Live (now closed), which ‘funded hundreds of venues… to upgrade their facilities’ for live music. The Department said that a new grants program is expected and, based on this successful experience, there is likely to be ‘strong demand’.
3.23The grants contributed towards expenses such as artist wages, ‘other’ wages (such as booking agent, sound technician, crew), marketing, equipment costs and event costs (such as staging, insurance and security).
3.24The Department added that the states, territories and the Australian Government each have their own roles and ‘we do the best we can to support the industry and act through a coordinated effort’.
3.25Creative Australia discussed the findings of their research on music festivals:
We found that, while a lot of the challenges were varied, something we could see quite clearly was that the commercial festivals were suffering the most from increasing insurance costs and user-pays policing. That would be one thing that you could address if you wanted to address their concerns.
3.26In addition to government grants, other options were also discussed, including tax offsets, a voucher scheme and a ticket levy.
Tax offsets
3.27Some witnesses proposed that the Australian Government could create a tax offsets scheme, which could, for example, reduce payable tax in exchange for investment in Australian live music.
3.28A submission from APRA AMCOS submitted:
Long standing local venues have been closing down from red-tape and over-regulation. … Australia urgently needs a national catalyst in the form a tax offset to revive Australian live music.
3.29The submission included some further detail on the offsets proposal, identifying the following preferred option and its estimated benefits:
A combined venue offset (of 5 per cent of expenses for current live music venues and $12,000 in expenses for those not currently hosting) would boost the incomes of musicians and artists by $205 million per year with an additional 203,200 gigs.
3.30The Australian Festival Association said that government grants are usually limited in their value and do not help larger events. While a voucher scheme could be more impactful, the Association’s preferred option was tax offsets:
Giving a lot of money to 18- to 25-year-olds is a cost for government, but it would have a huge impact. The other option being put forward is these tax offsets… If you want to support the live music industry, those tax offsets need to apply to the people who are putting the content through the venues and bringing the artists over—so that would be festival and music promoters.
3.31The NSW Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport said:
…rather than one-off grant programs or bursts of cash. …tax offsets can make it easier for venues to operate. Not every single venue, but you do have to meet a threshold and work out exactly what that model would look like. It's a viable way to provide ongoing sustainability and confidence to the sector.
3.32Sally Mather, from the Marriner Group, which operates a venue called The Forum, in Melbourne, said that tax offsets should be designed to incentivise Australian music:
…it has to recognise the cultural value of live music but in the essence of what this is, so it has to be original as well and it has to be in relation to Australian musicians and Australian music. That's really what needs support and what is the driver of our industry.
Voucher scheme
3.33Some witnesses proposed that the Australian Government could create or support a voucher scheme, whereby government-issued vouchers could be redeemed for tickets to see live music. Similar schemes in Europe were often discussed.
3.34For example, QMusic submitted:
Traditional ticket selling models and timelines seem largely broken - countries such as Spain and Germany have explored culture credits, vouchers and passes as different models to resource young audiences to be able to access music events. Innovative new music pass options need to be explored as a way of reintroducing audiences to Australian venues and artists.
3.35The Australia Institute submitted:
Around the world, more and more countries are introducing schemes in which young people are granted money to spend on arts. … youth cultural passes are an effective way of increasing engagement with the arts. Australia Institute polling shows that four in five young Australians (80 per cent) would increase the number of music events they attend if a $200 government-funded voucher were available.
3.36The Australia Institute’s submission added that a voucher scheme should be designed to benefit Australian artists, cultural institutions and business.
3.37Century Venues said that vouchers for live music would be welcome and suggested that transport costs, especially in regional areas, could be redeemable.
3.38The South Australian Department of Premier and Cabinet said that the state had created a voucher scheme for businesses to hire artists to perform live music. The scheme offered a $2 million pool of vouchers worth $400 each ‘to get live music acts back into pubs, clubs, small bars, restaurants, cafes, and other smaller venues’. The Committee was advised that around 3,000 (out of 4,000) available vouchers were redeemed.
3.39John Wardle Consulting said that while the voucher models used during the pandemic have ‘extraordinary potential’, some issues need to be resolved:
One of the shortfalls from the voucher system was it whilst it worked well business to business such as between a customer and a restaurant, when a third-party was involved such as ticketing agency then complications arose.
3.40A venue owner submitted that vouchers should be redeemed at the point of booking. Otherwise, the submission said, people make their bookings and then change their minds without consequence. The submission said:
They were able to retain their vouchers with no consequences, while we were sometimes left with a Sold Out sign and a near-empty room. This had a detrimental effect, both on us and the artists.
Ticket levy
3.41The Committee was told that a ticket levy – perhaps $1 for each ticket sold – could generate money for a fund that could be used to invest in small venues and emerging artists. However, there was some debate in the evidence about how the levy could work and what would be defined as ‘grassroots’ music.
3.42For example, The Australian Live Music Business Council discussed how a levy introduced in the United Kingdom could be replicated in Australia:
This levy would involve collecting a small amount—projected at $1—from each ticket sold for major events in large arenas. The funds would be managed through a trust specifically established to support smaller, independent venues that are crucial to the nurturing and development of local talent.
3.43The Push, a youth music organisation, supported the $1 ticket levy proposal:
A levy such as this will support the next generation of live music audiences and artists across Australia and will assist with shifting the funding model away from the consumption of alcohol.
3.44Rosemount Hotel, a venue in Perth, said that ‘if everyone who went to Coldplay contributed a dollar towards grassroots venues it would make such a big difference’.
3.45The Jive, a venue in Adelaide, supported the idea of a $1 ticket levy on shows with attendance of over 2,000 people:
… we've been advocating for that quite strongly… None of those really large arena shows and festivals and things would ever happen if small venues didn't exist to begin with. It all starts here and it grows.
3.46However, the Committee notes that Bluesfest Byron Bay defined a ‘grassroots’ venue as having a capacity of 2,000 to 3,000 attendees.
3.47Paul Mason (private capacity) said that while a levy is a ‘fantastic idea’, the details should be considered:
How much of that gets soaked up in administrative costs? How broadly is that largesse spread around the music community? For me, there's no single music economy. There are multiple music communities and multiple music economies.
3.48The Australian Live Music Business Council defined an ‘arena show’ to mean a show with more than 5,000 attendees.
3.49A submission from the venue William Street Bird summarised their view on the hierarchy of venue spaces in relation to artist progression or popularity:
- small capacity venues which hold up to 250 people are the starting point for any live musician and are arguably the most important for the development of new artists
- medium capacity venues which hold 250 to 1,000 people are usually the next stepping stone
- large capacity venues which hold 1,000 people to 5,000 people are when a band has garnered a following which allows them to hold an event in a larger space. Artists will usually be confident they can sell out the space when moving to a venue of this size
- festival or stadium appearance is at the point where a musician is nationally or internationally acclaimed.
- Dr Ben Green and Dr Sam Whiting suggested that a levy could operate depending on ticket price, starting at tickets priced over $100.
- Live Nation questioned how a ticket levy could operate:
…it's a little bit more complex than perhaps other people have suggested. Firstly, it is the headliner who sets the economic parameters of the tour. So the question is: is that levy coming out of the artist side of the financial arrangements or the promoter's side of the financial arrangements?
3.52Live Nation added:
The other questions… are the detail: is this is a national scheme, was it a state-by-state scheme? Clearly, Victoria and New South Wales attract the majority of performances, so would the scheme, if it goes into operation, generate income nationally for all grassroots venues or only as per state performances?
3.53Similarly, Live Performance Australia said:
We're not sure how this levy would work, who's collecting it, who would be making decisions and where it would be going. We're not sure why international artists should be subsidising other parts of the industry.
3.54Live Performance Australia added that the levy proposed in the United Kingdom is ‘not an operational model’ and ‘the government there has already indicated it wouldn't mandate for that kind of levy’.
3.55At the time of preparing this report, the UK Creative Industries Minister had supported a voluntary ticket levy and asked the live music industry to ‘work together’ on a solution to come into effect in 2025.
Insurance solutions for venues and festivals
3.56As discussed in Chapter 2, many witnesses representing festivals and venues said that insurance costs have sharply increased.
3.57The Australian Live Music Business Council said that there could be more competition:
The big thing that we need for live music venues… is to have more insurers coming back into the marketplace. That means more capacity, more competition and so hopefully a leveling or some decrease in premium.
3.58However, the Council said that this could take time:
But this is really going to be a long-term process like tort reform. To convince insurance companies to come back into the marketplace is going to take some time and it's going to take evidence and data for that to happen.
3.59Untitled Group, an Australia festival and event promotor, said that the aim should be to reduce risks:
…we would like propose establishing a clear insurance regime, including a code of conduct and crisis decision-making policies to protect event organisers. … We would also like to see increased investment in supporting the festivals and events, allocating grant funding that would support existing events… This would derisk the industry and decrease insurance premiums and operational costs, crucial for maintaining festival viability.
3.60Christopher Eassey, from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, said:
Alcohol and drug use in licensed entertainment settings and outdoor music festivals has been associated with various harms… We have found that proactive harm reduction measures can improve safety outcomes, thereby reducing the need for extensive policing at events. … By tracking these outcomes we can demonstrate a reduction in harms at music festivals, which could lead to lower event insurance costs and in turn improve the economic viability of these events.
3.61Music Victoria advised against subsidised insurance because ‘insurers will charge more’. Other witnesses suggested that the government could accept some of the insurance risks:
- the Australian Festival Association and Live Performance Australia recommended ‘government-backed underwriting of public liability and cancellation insurance’.
- Ewen Craig, from Cedar Mill Group, suggested that with government assistance, a self-insurance scheme could be established or a ‘financial guarantee’ offered from government to assist with insurance.
- the Insurance Council of Australia referred to the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority as an ‘obvious example’ of how government could help events with their insurance.
- Statewide Mutual, a local government insurance pool, discussed how buying together helps with price negotiation and risk management. Statewide Mutual said:
We're essentially the insurer on risk for Tamworth City Council, who run the country music festival. We're on risk for all the Anzac Day and Australia Day festivities that are run by different councils as well. They're quite reasonable gatherings. … Every time a council does an event, from a citizenship ceremony to a youth concert, they now have a culture where they undertake a full risk management appraisal that gets submitted to us… It's certainly not a driver of a lot of losses for us, even though we do participate quite widely in that space. …we're doing what we can to ensure that our community can roll up at these events and have a good, safe, fun day.
3.63H2 Insurance, an insurance broker, said that risk depends on the setting:
A live music venue is treated totally differently to how a festival is treated, which is also very different to how an indoor event is treated or a conference. We have a specialist policy for conference and exhibition. Again, that liability risk is a bunch of people walking into a flat room… It's a totally different liability risk from an outdoor festival.
3.64The Insurance Council also referred to the role of brokers and risk:
…if we introduce them to a broker that's specialised… they're able to articulate the risks to the underwriter or the insurer in a way that provides a level of comfort or a level of tailoring for that business. … Taylor Swift is not treated the same as Motley Crue.
3.65The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts told the Committee that government’s role is ‘not quite clear’ as insurance is a commercial matter. The Department added:
…we work closely with relevant colleagues in the Treasury and in Music Australia as well as with state and territory music officials to make sure we understand the nature of the issue. …the insurance industry charges what they do so they can manage their risks, and we don't get involved in that assessment.
3.66The Committee was advised that the South Australian Government had established a cancellation fund for live music and events, which granted up to $250,000 to cancelled events.
Support for Australian artists
3.67The Committee received various proposals aimed at supporting Australian artists, including by giving Australian music greater prominence, minimum pay and making spaces accessible.
Minimum fee or payment for musicians
3.68Some witnesses discussed the adoption of a minimum $250 fee when governments hire musicians or performers for publicly funded events.
3.69The Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance said that most jurisdictions had endorsed the minimum fee and said that the Australian Government, Tasmanian and Northern Territory governments should also endorse the $250 minimum for taxpayer-subsidised events. In addition, the Alliance said:
The $250 minimum should be adopted by commercial operators across Australia as part of broader industry solutions. … This principle should also apply in the case that government funding (direct or indirect) is to be directed towards festivals. In other words, any government funding of the sector should be tied to the condition of fair payment to musicians.
3.70Leon Pratt (private capacity) submitted:
A $250 minimum payment for musicians for live performance, which will ensure that a foundational culture of music is built to support local musicians, music practice and local music culture.
3.71Dr Robert Stove (private capacity) said that while this proposal is a ‘good thing’, a musician could agree to ‘undercut’ the minimum and accept a lower price.
3.72One venue owner opposed the minimum pay proposal, submitting that ‘this is unsustainable for small, independent venues such as ours’. The submission continued:
If they know they will receive $250 regardless of whether there are 4 or 40 people buying tickets, bands sometimes don’t promote at all or save their efforts for gigs where every ticket matters. But from the venue’s perspective, as the band is getting nearly all the ticket proceeds, we rely on people spending over the bar to cover our costs, so we need at least 20-30 people in the room buying 2 or 3 drinks each just to break even. Other nights, we charge even less for entry, so again, having a mandatory $250 fee is unworkable.
Australian content quota
3.73The Association of Artist Managers said that Australia should be ‘looking into content quotas and algorithmic quotas’ and potentially ‘looking at other countries to see what they have done’, as well as ‘research to find out how we can open that up for Australian audiences’.
3.74For example, Music Victoria said:
…we need to increase the discoverability, introducing local music content quotas everywhere—radio, streaming, film, television, on-hold music, live shows, on bills with internationals.
3.75In addition, Music Victoria discussed Canadian content rules:
…if a user is on a platform like Netflix, Spotify and TikTok, and has a Canadian IP [Internet protocol] address, the services are required to deliver back a certain amount of Canadian created content in the search results.
3.76Robert Baxter (private capacity) said:
It would be amazing if we had more shows interviewing artists, platforming them, and letting us know that Australian artists are important. …big artists are pushed but why are the big artists not Australian? Why is the content that TikTok pushes not Australian content that we are producing? We could be producing amazing content because, as we have seen, we have amazing musicians here.
3.77Dr Sam Whiting and Dr Ben Green submitted that Australian content quotas should be legislated for digital streaming services – for both music and screen media.
3.78The Queensland Department of Treaty, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Partnerships, Communities and the Arts said that television productions could be asked to include more Australian music in their soundtrack. The Department said:
The majority of Australian productions, and certainly international productions, receive tax incentives from government to film… I was absolutely mind blown by the outcomes that Heartbreak High had as a production. … In the first season, 128 songs played. That show was in the top 10 internationally on the Netflix platform. …it can mean a big boost in profile, not to mention that income fees paid for the right to use the track can range a few thousand dollars at the low end to $100,000 at the high end.
3.79The Department added:
If the government is funding and incentivising these productions, can government do more in terms of Australian procurement and procuring local artists and local businesses to get more value out of that for live musicians?
3.80Live Performance Australia said:
…we must invest in the artist career matrix. We need to understand the myriad of pathways an artist now has to navigate to grow and sustain a music career. What does that career matrix look like in 2025 and beyond and where does government invest public funds to support local artists to succeed in a global market?
3.81Furthermore:
…we must identify options for cutting through on the streaming services. This may be through having a percentage of local content requirement on locally curated playlists in our market. The bigger challenge is how we get our Australian artists onto global playlists.
3.82Spotify submitted that ‘live music and streaming are complementary modes of music consumption’ because streaming services help build an artist’s popularity, following and ability to attract new fans.
Australian support acts for international artists
3.83The Association of Artist Managers discussed ‘Michael’s rule’, a convention whereby ‘there was an Australian act… for every international one’ at big concerts. The Association said:
There have been some fantastic examples where that's worked so well. Pink and Tones and I is probably one of the greatest examples, especially in the larger scale. We just want to see more of that. …it's not just about that support moment when they're on stage. It is about the marketing and getting that name out there for all of those people who are anticipating the show.
3.84The Queensland Music Network supported this position:
…a very simple intervention… is to say that any international artist playing a venue larger than a thousand seats in Australia needs an Australian support artist. You can't just bring them in from overseas, and you don't have an option to do nothing. It costs nothing for that international to do.
3.85Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers said that ‘it would be really cool to see if acts such as Taylor Swift were made to have an Australian opener on their line-up and it was a rule that was put into place’.
More opportunities to perform live music
3.86The Committee was told that artists need suitable spaces to perform live music for audiences. Small venues, for example, are important for emerging artists.
3.87The Australian Music Association discussed the idea of ‘make music day’, which originated in France in 1982. The Association said:
They said: 'We need a day when everyone goes out and enjoys music in the street. It can be anywhere.' And they encourage people to put on big concerts in public spaces and so on. …the only two things that are really fundamental… are that it's on that day—you do all that stuff on that day—and that it's free to attend.
3.88The NSW Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport said:
…what will really help get this industry back on track is not only increasing the numbers in audiences, the number of people going out, but being able to increase their spend and supporting them to do that.
3.89The Department added:
Without that, the sector is in some real trouble, as we're already seeing with a lot of venues, festivals and businesses in the live music space struggling to adapt, and I think it's particularly impacting the small-to-medium sector.
3.90MusicNSW said:
…having community owned and operated venues with a lower barrier to entry, especially for young people to hone their craft and to experiment with not just performing live music but rehearsing it, creating it and making it, is super important.
3.91The Queensland Music Network said that intervention is needed:
The market will not solve small to medium sized venues being able to be sustainable and support Australian artists. That needs some immediate level of intervention. The market will not solve discoverability. That's really the next level of how we make it easier for Australians to find Australians.
3.92The Australian Festival Association said that potentially, venue costs can be too high:
State owned venues need to reduce their hire fees, noting that venues like Centennial Park in Sydney have become completely untenable for events under 25,000 patrons. In particular, in New South Wales, state venues are more expensive than commercial venues, which, in the current crisis, doesn't make sense. … The regulation costs to operate in New South Wales are far higher than anywhere else in the rest of the country.
Making sites and spaces safe and accessible
3.93As discussed in the previous chapter, the safety and accessibility of live music events can impact on artist and audience participation.
3.94The Live Music Office, which works on better regulation and policy for live music, discussed their role with the Committee:
We advocate to local councils for a whole-of-council approach to supporting live music. We start a conversation about live music, but it ends up becoming a bigger conversation about their evening economy strategies and the policies they have around decision-making for planning and zoning. It becomes much more technical because live music… attracts that kind of regulation separately to other art forms like the visual arts, libraries or museums.
3.95Untitled Group said:
Establishing an infrastructure fund to enhance festival sites could also be a reliable resource for sustaining positive impacts on festivals, particularly in regional communities.
3.96MusicNT said that musicians, audiences and staff are attracted to venues committed to creating a safe environment. However, if a venue has ‘a particular reputation the other way, there is a dramatic step back to musicians wanting to engage in that space’.
3.97Kieren Bramham, who represented a group of independent musicians, DJs, promotors, agents and venues, told the Committee:
You often see free or very discounted tickets for people who identify as Indigenous or for other groups.... We're also investing in safe security that is representative of the demographic and… trained in dealing with different communities. During a trans night it's quite important that there's a large contingent of trans or queer folk there so that those individuals feel safe and feel comfortable in that space. That can be quite hard if it's just a small group of individuals who are in a large, very heteronormative environment.
3.98Australian Women in Music said:
The music industry has been… traditionally a very sexist and misogynist industry. The fact that women are being excluded from line-ups from some of the major festivals is just astounding… to many people across the sector, including many men across the sector, who are very concerned about that as well.
3.99However, change is possible:
…there is a very strong sense that the industry needs to change. We are seeing small steps heading in the right direction. I believe that everybody wants to work in an industry that is inclusive and diverse and a healthy, safe and supportive place for everybody.
3.100Australian Women in Music said that government has a role to monitor progress on representation in at festivals and in the live music industry.
Marketing and promotion
3.101Some witnesses suggested that live music could be promoted more effectively, including by attracting tourists to attend events and developing an export strategy.
3.102The Marriner Group said that live music venues were portrayed as ‘dangerous’ places during theCOVID-19 pandemic. The Marriner Group observed:
If that's the messaging being heard by teenagers who are turning 18 and… are trying to work out what spaces they want to go to and be safe in, that's not something that they'll easily forget.
3.103Ms Mather continued:
In terms of turning that around, I feel that there is some work to be done from the government's side in changing that messaging back around and reminding people of the cultural value to the community and the positivity that comes out of the live music space…
3.104Sinead O’Hara, from Rosemount Hotel in Perth, said:
Everyone knows that Melbourne is thriving with live music... The broader WA audience don't know that original live music happens in Perth. It could be good to tie that into some kind of marketing campaign with the ticket levy that goes out through more mainstream channels, tourism channels and things like that. I have often seen things pop up on social media that are like '10 things to do when you visit Perth', and most of the time it never includes anything to do with live music, let alone the arts.
3.105MusicSA said:
…there can be a stronger conversation between arts, culture, creative industries and education, for example, or tourism. Tourism, I think, is very underexploited, in terms of visibility around live music in South Australia, particularly in connection with some of our pinnacle festivals.
3.106Live Performance Australia said that a ‘global export strategy’ is needed:
This requires pulling the various parts of the music industry together, including live record labels, publishers and the streaming companies. This should be a first order priority for Music Australia.
3.107The Jive, a venue in Adelaide, suggested that tourists could be given information about ‘what’s happening in Adelaide’.
Connecting artists with audiences and communities
3.108During the inquiry, many witnesses discussed the role of live music in their community, the idea of grassroots music, how networks are established, the role of radio stations and conducting research.
Radio broadcasting
3.109Many witnesses and submissions said that despite the emergence of social media and streaming services, radio remains an important medium for connecting artists with their audiences.
3.110The Australian Broadcasting Corporation discussed their role in music promotion and broadcasting, such as the Unearthed radio program:
Unearthed is such an important way for young and emerging Australian artists to be discovered and to build fan bases… So I think developing Unearthed further so that live shows can be highlighted through gig guides and promoters can be helped when they're looking to find local artists, or First Nations artists, who can appear on line-ups through the kind of searching and filtering that could be added to the platform would go a really long way in providing that extra level of support for artists who are trying to grow their careers and, therefore, extend into live music performances.
3.111Radio station 3MBS Melbourne, a classical and jazz community radio station, discussed their experience:
We have weekly programs that promote upcoming live music events. … National, regional and Melbourne-based arts organisations and festivals promote their concerts on 3MBS regularly in the form of sponsorship ads… The station provides a free service for community musicians to promote their concerts on our website and as a daily broadcast.
3.112Further, after COVID-19 and lockdowns, the station found that they could ‘play a big role in getting people out to live music again’. For example:
We asked our arts, classical music arts organisations and artists, to come in and talk about their live concerts. We initiated our Made in Melbourne program, that ensured a significant number of paid performances for musicians whose income had been affected by the pandemic.
3.113The Committee heard that community radio’s potential for artists developing their career pathway. FBi radio, a station in Sydney, told the Committee:
There are countless examples of artists who have been played for the first time on FBi. That has kickstarted their career. One that comes to mind… is the success of Flume, a local electronic producer who was played for the very first time on FBi and was interviewed on FBi when he was a teenager. He then went on to play hugely successful shows in Sydney and is now one of the most successful electronic music acts in the world.
Developing music communities
3.114During the inquiry, the Committee was often advised on events that are described as being grassroots, community-focused and building the next generation of artists.
3.115MusicNSW said that ‘the idea that we just prop the sector up with government investment is not where we should be headed’. Rather:
It's about developing those grassroots communities. …looking at the missing middle… the early career developing artists and industry and thinking about how we support them with professional development opportunities, with opportunities to perform in communities so that there is a thriving and diverse range of activity happening across Australia. Within that comes a competitive environment and a market, where artists have the capacity to rise to export levels.
3.116MusicNSW discussed the regional touring network, which has a website that maps venues and helps artists plan their tours:
You go to a website and there is a map of… venues across regional New South Wales. You can search using a variety of filters around accessibility or the capacity sizes that you think you're ready to play in. You use that to create touring opportunities outside the metro centres.
3.117The NSW Department of Creative Industries, Tourism Hospitality and Sport said that supporting grassroots live music venues is ‘a real priority’. The Department said:
There are many ways you could do that. …you could consider tax concessions or whatever it is for venues or looking at working with international tours—I don't have a specific opinion on which one, but really looking at how we support that local grassroots sector is important.
3.118Dr Diana Tolmie, from the Queensland Conservatorium, told the Committee:
The current macro-environmental stresses experienced by the live music industry are not helping to inspire or support our future musicians to follow a career in music. Without targeted support of emerging, particularly female, artists attrition will continue to increase. This is not ideal in an AI [artificial intelligence] future where authentic experiences such as live music performance will be increasingly desired.
3.119The Cobargo Folk Festival, a festival in southern NSW, said:
We're part of a network of folk and roots festivals around the country. Festivals like ours provide paid opportunities, and quite good paid opportunities… to showcase the creative work of independent Australian artists from all over the country who come to our events to perform. Probably around about 80 per cent of the artists that we take at our festivals are Australian.
3.120The Cobargo Folk Festival creates wider benefits for the community:
We fund music education, music development and music participation activities. For more than a decade, we have hosted the Crossing Youth stage, where many young musicians from our region have had their start, and many of them have gone on to rewarding musical careers here and overseas. We train our volunteers, especially our young people, building skills in stage management, logistics, not-for-profit governance, financial administration and all the other skills needed to produce a complex, multiday, live event in a rural area. We inject more than $2 million… in our local area in direct and flow-on expenditure, and we draw thousands of visitors to our area at festival time and beyond.
3.121Festival tickets are available in various tiers, including single day, full weekend and stage price releases, making it accessible to a wide audience. The festival is known for its welcoming vibe, making it suitable for families and music lovers of all ages.
3.122The City of Fremantle discussed local government’s changing role:
Over the last 10 to 20 years, there has been a radical change in community expectations about what local governments deliver… Currently… we run around 45 medium to higher attendance level gigs across the year and 15 or so major concerts across the year, and they are well attended by both the community and the wider metropolitan area.
3.123The City of Fremantle added that ‘budgets aren’t increasing’ and the council is relying on audiences to contribute towards costs.
All ages events
3.124Some witnesses suggested that venues and festivals could improve their viability if all ages – including attendees aged under 18 – could more easily attend live music. In addition, witnesses referred to the lost opportunity of young people to attend live music during the COVID-19 pandemic.
3.125The Australian Festival Association discussed events where people aged 16 or older are permitted to attend, such as the Listen Out festival:
In New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, they have to have a guardian with them at all times. … In Queensland and South Australia, you don't have to have a guardian with you. … When I'm looking for ways to try to increase our audience and therefore make the festivals more viable, that's a real sign of something that can be done and that can be changed.
3.126The Push discussed a Victorian program called FReeZA, which offers grants for events aimed at young people aged 12 to 25:
FReeZA is a Victorian government program which currently provides 82 teams of local young people across Victoria with the opportunity to stage the music events that they want to see in their local communities. …these kinds of programs can address the skills shortages that our sector is currently facing. It's nurturing not only just a pipeline for young audiences but also for industry practitioners.
3.127Bluesfest Byron Bay said:
We don't charge anything for parents bringing children at the ages of 10 or under… I'm telling you there are generations that come to Bluesfest because they grew up with it. Then, for children between the ages of 10 and 14, it's only $100 to bring your child for the whole four or five days. We don't start to charge full fees until the age of 18 and over, because we view ourselves as a family event and we want young people coming. We want them to experience the gift of music, and we put on a style of music where the musicians are renowned for their level of dexterity, their ability to write great songs, and their great performances.
3.128The West Australian Live Music Association said that it is ‘cost prohibitive for an 18-plus venue to open to a younger audience’. However, the Association added that some venues are instead targeting older audiences – the ‘traditional drinkers’ – who are more likely to spend money at the bar
First Nations
3.129The Committee heard evidence on supporting and recognising First Nations live music and artists.
3.130Songline Music Aboriginal Corporation said discussed the Share the Spirit festival:
It's a big festival in the eyes of the community and it is our largest festival in the state. What it does is nurture younger musicians of any ilk to be able to come and show their wares, express themselves and perform in environments that they would otherwise not have the opportunity to. Nurturing that is something that we take very seriously, and we look at how we can further their careers.
3.131The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia submitted:
First Nations community broadcasters have played an instrumental role in raising the profile of First Nations musicians. They nurture and support First Nations artists and are a conduit for the production and a promotion of their work. Almost half First Nations listeners (46 per cent) have discovered a local or emerging artist by listening to community radio.
3.132West Australian Music submitted:
…First Nations individuals may struggle to comprehend the grant processes. Filtering these grants through peak bodies or organisations that can champion First Nations artists has proven beneficial in overcoming these obstacles.
3.133APRA AMCOS submitted that there should be a ‘dedicated First Nations Music Commissioning Fund for First Nations artists and First Nations led organisations’.
Environmentally sustainable events
3.134Some witnesses discussed making their events environmentally sustainable. For example, Green Music Australia said:
…the shift to circular economies is good for the climate. The data that we've seen shows that festivals can save up to 66 per cent on their waste bills by switching to reusable crockery, cutlery and cups. That's really good for jobs, because there are a large number of jobs associated with the reusable economy in terms of washing stuff and putting it back on shelves, and it's going to be good for the festivals, because it saves them money.
3.135In addition, Green Music Australia said that climate should be recognised in government policies on the arts:
The Revive policy… is wonderful in many respects… but it doesn't include climate. There's no mention of climate in that policy, as opposed to, for example, Creative Victoria, that have a whole chapter and a whole strategic priority dedicated to climate in their arts policy.
3.136Queenscliff Music Festival said that they are ‘committed to environmental sustainability’ and ‘received accolades over recent years for our initiatives in relation to waste minimisation, product stewardship and an emissions reduction program that benefits the local community’.
Research and data
3.137Witnesses discussed the importance of doing research to understand audience behaviours and environmental impacts on live music events.
3.138For example, the NSW Department of Creative Industries, Tourism Hospitality and Sport said that strategies to sustain live music should be based on data:
Before you start any kind of strategy for trying to grow or build the sector, you've got to understand it… being able to quantify and understand all the different components—whether it's recording studios and rehearsal spaces, which are vital to the ecosystem, or venues themselves—will play a really important role in not only setting a benchmark for progress and how you improve things over the next few years but guiding what strategies you employ to grow that sector.
3.139Australian Women in Music told the Committee that ‘women and diverse minorities working in the Australian music industry is one of the least researched areas’.
3.140The Australian Festival Association said that future climate change impacts should be researched:
We want to know whether the sites and spaces around the country that we're using for festivals at the moment will be viable into the long term. … If we can be a bit surer about areas that are safe to have mass gatherings in, outdoors in the heat, and that events won't get cancelled because of weather patterns, then let's get the research done.
3.141Paul Mason (private capacity) said:
…there have been numerous research projects, but they are… one-off snapshots. What hasn't happened is a regularly updated state-of-the-nation report that affords the ability to track trends and developments over time.
Music skills, education and audience curiosity
3.142Further to evidence on the importance of connecting communities with audiences, some witnesses said that this process begins with music education, knowledge about music and encouraging people to be curious about music.
3.143For example, Creative Australia said:
Communities are going to be such a big part of our strategy to grow a market. You need to come right back to grassroots communities that can evolve through community radio, through scenes and through different genres. … I think it will be a feature of Music Australia's policy. We want to look at community music hubs. Whilst we're talking big festivals and big picture, we're going to have to come back down to the grass roots. We're going to have to look at music education in schools.
3.144MusicSA said:
The creation of new and visible pathways in music education and training in schools and in tertiary institutions is a major contributor to future music audiences and workforces. We must address the disadvantage that many urban and regional areas across Australia experience in the development and delivery of grassroots live music… We need nuanced and regional-specific industry development and investment opportunities to transition to and build sustainable and diverse business models for live music.
3.145Dr Benjamin Green, from Griffith University, said:
…there are known skills shortages in the live music industry. It's perhaps not musicians but in crew, production and technical sectors. They have been a real problem since COVID, where there were mass departures from those occupations. That was partly as a result of the casualisation that's been happening in there for a long time now. … I've seen examples where businesses have worked with local TAFEs to develop traineeships and had great results… that's something I think could be encouraged.
3.146The Music Press said:
Local Australian music is becoming less visible as it competes in a more globally programmed marketplace. For live music, if the audience don't know the band, they won't buy the ticket.
3.147In addition, the Music Press Recommended:
Australia needs to develop greater musical curiosity, starting with school education and strategies to expose kids to live music both as audience and participants. The pipeline of curiosity needs to be met with supports for grassroots venues, media and music creation infrastructure. … then we can move on to how you convince an 18-year-old to go to a live music venue and pay $15 for a beer when they can't afford their rent.
Other matters
3.148The Committee received evidence on some additional issues that may impact on the sustainability of live music:
- the Australian Government’s role in ensuring fairness and competition through regulators
- artificial intelligence and copyright.
Enforcing fairness and market competition
3.149The Committee discussed competition and market concentration with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). In response to the Committee’s questions, the ACCC said:
Competition drives cheaper prices. Efficient pricing benefits consumers. And that's the reason we have both a market economy and laws that seek to prevent anticompetitive conduct. … Despite merger laws, we do see concentration arising in markets, and that's where you've got to then look at misuse of market power, exclusivity type arrangements and the competition provisions.... But, absolutely, where those restrictions are in place, they go to lessening of competition, which inevitably restricts choice, increases prices and leads to inefficient outcomes.
3.150The Committee asked the ACCC about monopolisation, Live Nation and legal action occurring in the United States. The ACCC said:
We're familiar with that action. We work very closely with the Department of Justice and other competition regulators in the US, including the FTC [Federal Trade Commission]. There are a couple of points to note... They have similar, but not the same, laws and regimes. …the market circumstances and the factors impacting the US are slightly different than in Australia. We don't comment on matters that might be under investigation, but if your question is: Do we receive similar issues? Do we look? Are we watching the DOJ [United States Department of Justice] action? Yes, is the answer to all of those.
3.151As discussed in the previous chapter, some witnesses shared these concerns in their evidence to the Committee.
3.152In response, Live Nation said that its share of the Australian market is not the same as in the United States:
Live Nation has dominant position in the US concert market. It's by far the major promoter; it has perhaps 75 or 85 per cent of the concert market in the USA. Ticketmaster is also the major ticketing provider in USA. In Australia, there are three companies—Live Nation, TEG and AEG Frontier—that have roughly equivalent shares of the major concert market… In that sense, structurally, it is a very different competitive environment in Australia than in the USA.
3.153Live Nation added that they own ‘six out of approximately 2,700 venues’ in Australia, adding ‘the six venues that we own and/or operate in Australia are either public or private partnerships’. Live Nation said that unofficial ticket resellers should be the main concern:
If you look internationally at companies like Viagogo and StubHub, they're billion-dollar enterprises, and they're built on the back of artist endeavour, where the artist sees no return. We may have an operating margin of three or four per cent of gross income. StubHub and Viagogo operate at a 23 per cent margin, and that margin is earned on the back of artists whose tickets are taken and put into the secondary market.
3.154The ACCC said that they had successfully ‘taken action against resellers such as Viagogo for what we say are misrepresentations’.
Copyright and artificial intelligence
3.155During the inquiry, some witnesses discussed the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), whether it could displace human-created music and how this could also impact on artists’ rights to protect their creations.
3.156The Queensland Music Network said that artificial intelligence should not be writing songs, because ‘an algorithm cannot be as good as a human, because it will always look historically; it can't look forward’.
3.157The Australian Copyright Council submitted:
Copyright is the bedrock of artist development and their career pathways, ‘the economic foundation of the Australian music industry and strong copyright laws ensure artists and other rightsholders can protect their work and investment and make an income.
3.158Dr Suelette Dreyfus (private capacity) said:
We might like to say that markets are a good thing. They can be a good thing for outcomes; however, they only work when you have proper information. What we see here is the advent of AI based music being potentially put on a set of large streaming entities, and the consumers don't know what they're buying.
3.159Dr Christopher Ewin discussed artificial intelligence, telling the Committee that transparency about its use is preferable to ‘harsh regulation’. He said:
…AI is a valuable tool; it is a co-creation tool for a lot of artists. For example, you have the ability to expand upon lyrics that you might have already generated, you can test different ideas, and you can experiment with different instruments that otherwise might not have been possible. That can aid an individual artist's development; not just in producing a track but also in building the artist's ability to deliver live music. So the idea should not be to regulate it out of existence… Transparency, from my point of view, is probably the most critical aspect.
3.160Dr Ewin’s colleague, Dr Suelette Dreyfus, said that music wholly created with artificial intelligence could be tariffed:
…a small tariff… to provide a subsidy for the performances or creations of live music artists… That might be a method of levelling the playing field and preventing the risk of vertical-integration domination by a few international behemoths of the industry.
3.161YouTube said that artificial intelligence has ‘brought music to the cusp of a new era’. In addition:
YouTube continues to lean into these principles and is developing new synthetic-singing identification technology within Content ID that will allow partners to automatically detect and manage AI-generated content on YouTube that simulates their singing voices. We’re refining this technology with our partners, with a pilot program planned for this year.
3.162The Australian Copyright Council said:
Last year there was a series of ministerial roundtables run by the Attorney-General and the Attorney-General's Department…The Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Reference Group has also been established… The government is looking at copyright very robustly at the moment.
3.163The Australian Copyright Council noted that the Attorney-General’s Department is reviewing Australia’s copyright enforcement. The review, which is pending completion, included consideration of ways for small creators to claim for copyright breaches. Otherwise, the Council said, Australian copyright laws are ‘good’.