Australian live music ‘firmly in crisis’<\/a><\/p>\nFrom Perth to Albury, we take a look at Australia’s live music scene and how it’s faring after a pandemic and during a cost of living crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There was a period where we had these huge artists coming through Darwin \u2013 I remember Stevie Wonder, Cliff Richard, Dire Straits,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That hasn’t happened in recent years.<\/p>\n
“There’s a few factors there \u2013 that was [back in the day when] planes had to stop over in Darwin to refuel \u2013 but I think mainly [the reason is that] the general costs have increased.”<\/p>\n
Crowd-sourced data from the Australian Concert Tour Database shows the territory hosts a disproportionately low number of international touring artists compared to other states and territories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With industry stakeholders saying visits from both internationally and nationally renowned artists becoming increasingly rare, they\u2019re concerned the issue could worsen with time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘No profitable tours’ in Darwin\u00a0<\/p>\n
Live performance venues have struggled across the country in the cost-of-living crisis and since the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n
But in a place where airfares and accommodation costs were already high, venue managers say they are now almost guaranteed to lose money booking touring artists in the Top End capital.<\/p>\n
Russell Temple, general manager of Darwin venue Mayberry, has been booking bands for 30 years and says he’s seen the capacity to sell tickets in Darwin tank over that time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m not aware of any live music tours being profitable in Darwin,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Mayberry general manager Russell Temple says most venue owners lose money when booking touring artists in Darwin. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)<\/p>\n
He said the large amount of money spent on overhead costs \u2013 often at the expense of low ticket prices \u2013 is compounded by small and historically stagnant population.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’ve been part of national tours where every other state [beside the territory] has sold their quota,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Pete Murray is one \u2013 we did shows in Alice Springs and Port Lincoln and sold over 900 in both locations [while] in Darwin we sold 240.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Howlett says, in her experience, lesser-known Australian acts often rule out travelling through the territory entirely on account of the high costs and associated risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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While live venues across the country have struggled in the cost-of-living crisis, touring costs in Darwin were already prohibitive. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)<\/p>\n
“There are long distances to cover by road, there’s risks with travel, and with [the cost of] insurance it’s pretty daunting to plan a big tour without some funding behind you,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Mr Temple, the lack of touring artists and the low chance of profitability run the risk of Darwin’s live music woes becoming self-fulfilling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You don’t get the industry talking in a positive manner about Darwin,” he said.<\/p>\n
Industry urges ground-up approach\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those at the heart of the local live music scene say there’s a road to revival, but it will require stakeholders to think outside the box.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Smith says the groundwork must be done to establish a self-sustaining local scene before bigger acts choose to take a risk visiting the Top End.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Music NT’s Mark Smith wants to see a renewed focus on supporting local live music and performance venues. (ABC News: Simon Goodes)<\/p>\n
“It’s a question of ‘How do we get people back out and supporting live music? What spaces do we have for bands to play in?'” he said.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s a lot of discussion around redeveloping the [Darwin] Amphitheatre to bring it up to a standard where artists can use it.<\/p>\n
“That’s really a live conversation between local government and territory government.”<\/p>\n
In remote Australia, a concert becomes something much bigger<\/a><\/p>\nBehind the scenes of the Guts tour: a roaming, solar-powered tour that snakes its way through some of the most remote communities in the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n
He says some bigger-picture solutions would require government to work with the local scene to embolden promoters and venues to take risks.<\/p>\n
“I think there’s opportunities, almost to repurpose the existing funding structures to try and take away some of the risk for promoters to bring larger scale acts,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Ms Howlett and bands like TANG, it’s a matter of tapping into the reservoirs of local talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Propping up our local bands, especially at festivals like Darwin Festival and Bass in the Grass, is really important \u2014 giving local acts that chance to get on those bigger stages and build confidence,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are hungry for it, and it’s really exciting to get those opportunities and to meet these bands from other cities around Australia and show off the talent that we have here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For local musicians like Leisa Howlett, the chance to support major touring artists playing gigs in Darwin can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,411447,30888,411446],"class_list":["post-839059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music-acts","tag-music-industry","tag-nt-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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