More than 1,300 live music venues and stages across Australia have been lost permanently since Covid restrictions began, shrinking the live music scene for small to medium gigs by one-third over the past three years, according to Apra Amcos’s annual report.
Australian music fans flocking to large-scale concerts by huge international acts such as Ed Sheeran, Elton John and Harry Styles has delivered a record year in licensing fee earnings for Australasia’s music rights collecting agency Apra Amcos. However, recovery at the grassroots level of the local music industry has been shackled by a dearth of venues, said the agency’s chief executive, Dean Ormston.
“It’s absolutely at a crisis point,” he said. “The market has been decimated and we’re asking the government to look at this with some urgency.”
Although Victoria recorded the world’s longest lockdown during the pandemic, it was New South Wales which permanently lost the highest percentage of pre-Covid live music venues – almost one in three – followed by the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia. Victoria saw a 24% reduction in venues, according to Apra Amcos’s annual report.
Ormston said the industry had been lobbying the federal government to introduce tax incentives to kickstart the sector.
Tax offsets for live music venues could operate on a similar system to those in the local screen industry, where rebates are claimable if productions meet local content and employment quotas. The offsets, which largely benefit Hollywood studios shooting in Australia, were almost doubled to 30% by the Labor government in the May budget.
“It really is a simple ask, it’s affordable and it will absolutely jumpstart businesses presenting live music on a national basis, and that’s what we need,” Ormston said.
“We can’t wait for years and years for venues to organically come back online, we need something more immediate than that.
“Pubs and clubs are really where Australian bands get to cut their teeth, develop their own audiences, build their own profile and fan base and develop their own careers. With so many venues now lost, it’s absolutely a crisis point. We need an intervention.”
In January, Music Australia, a new national body to develop and support new contemporary music, was created as part of Labor’s national cultural policy. On Thursday Millie Millgate, the former head of Australia’s music export program Sounds Australia, was announced as its inaugural director.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Apra Amcos said the creation of Music Australia was proof the federal government now recognised the sector as a legitimate industry “worthy of investment”.
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Guardian Australia has sought comment from the federal arts minister, Tony Burke.
While the agency’s annual report found that the small to medium live music sector was struggling, a slew of Australian artists achieved significant success on the international stage in 2022.
Rüfüs Du Sol, the Kid Laroi, G Flip, Flume and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard were just some of the artists who contributed to a record year for the agency, with international income from affiliate collecting agencies exceeding $70m for the first time, a 17.7% year-on-year increase.
That contributed to total gross revenue of $690.5m, an increase of 12% on the previous year.
According to the same data, music festivals appear to have recovered fully from lockdowns, but possibly to the detriment of nightclubs, where crowds have almost halved since pre-pandemic trading, dropping from 2.8 million in 2019 to 1.6 million in 2022.
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