Rising costs, the lack of incentives and changing trends are among the myriad reasons big acts are bypassing us on their tours, the managing director of Live Nation says.

A version of this story was originally published on the Boiler Room Substack.

I’d just sat down at Claudelands Events Centre with a very strong coffee when I felt a tap on my arm. Mark Kneebone, the managing director for Live Nation New Zealand, shook my hand, asked how I was, then rifled through a sheaf of paper covered in typed words and scrawled notes. Then he whispered: “I’m here to talk about your favourite topic – why acts aren’t coming to New Zealand.”

Soon, at Eventing the Future, the New Zealand Events Association’s annual conference, Kneebone was standing on stage doing exactly that. For 13 minutes, he spoke fast and direct, delivering the day’s key state of the nation address. Initially, things sounded positive. Last year was a “boom” for live entertainment, Kneebone announced, one that broke many live touring records. “More than 1.5 million people attended our events up and down the country,” he said. “It was mammoth.”

Just one year on, things have changed – drastically. “We find ourselves looking down the barrel of a different pipeline,” Kneebone admitted. He’s calling this, “The year of the slow burn”. What’s the problem? Almost everything. Kneebone went through a list of issues causing the world’s biggest artists to bypass us in favour of exclusive Australian shows, including rising costs, the lack of incentives and changing trends.

It got grim. Kneebone called enticing artists to New Zealand “a grind”. At one point, he said: “The allure of New Zealand as a destination and must-do touring market is in a state of flux.” Later on he said: “Our nation is falling down the global pecking order.” Then he said: “We have fallen further behind our friends across the ditch.”

Lady Gaga’s Mayhem Ball tour (Photo: Getty Images)

Much of this we already knew. For the past three months, I have been pointing and shouting and waving to anyone who will listen about how acts like Green Day, The Killers, Billie Eilish and Katy Perry are skipping Aotearoa in favour of exclusive Australian tours. So many are doing it I had to rank them all. By the end of the year, Oasis, Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga will all perform major stadium tours across Australia. In one insane week, Melbourne will get more stadium shows and festivals than Auckland is getting all year.

Why? Kneebone laid out the reasons like a bricklayer. It was a litany of concerns and complaints that painted a very sorry picture. They went something like this…

The cost of doing business. “All our deals with international clients are done in USD,” said Kneebone. “Having a dollar that buys 59 cents is like starting every offer on our back foot.”
Rising shipping costs and bigger productions. “As tours get bigger, more complex and push the boundaries of tech and production, freight becomes more of a factor,” said Kneebone. “Shows are becoming more complex and artists are less open to playing without their entire stage rig.”
Artists want fans to come to them. “We’re seeing artists play more shows in less cities,” he said. He detailed a 10-15 percent cost increase in putting on a show here compared to Australia. “The proposition between Auckland and Brisbane is becoming starker. The gap between what an artist can earn between the two cities continued to widen in 2024.”
Aotearoa hasn’t caught up with international vibes. “Australia’s growth is not just driven by stadium fillers like Oasis and Lady Gaga, but also by non-English-speaking acts like Stray Kids and Bad Bunny,” said Kneebone. “These acts have graduated into arenas and stadiums, but here in New Zealand we’re still waiting for the genres to mature to the point where our market is a serious proposition.”

Taylor Swift at Mt Smart Stadium in 2018 (Photo: Supplied)

Ahh, the land of Oz. Over there, with a market buoyed by unprecedented demand and huge major event incentives paid for by local governments, concert-goers are experiencing a musical bonanza. Kneebone pointed to this fact time and again. “Australia [is] a market which is still seeing a huge boost in premiere ticket sales and record-breaking touring hitting their shores, in part by significant investment in state governments to drive domestic tourism, but also thanks to the very healthy live ecosystem,” he said. “We know that Queensland is the fastest growing economy in Australia and has some lofty tourism and event targets which will be supported by significant investment.”

If you’re angry that your favourite stadium-filling artist isn’t coming here, hearing all this won’t help. But it was refreshing to hear the world’s biggest live entertainment company front up for the first time and give honest answers to questions I swore I wouldn’t stop looking for. It was a shame, then, that the person who needed to hear Kneebone speak the most wasn’t there. Despite appearing on stage earlier in the day, tourism and hospitality minister Louise Upston had quietly exited the conference before Kneebone spoke.

For her own presentation, Upston spoke for twice as long and said half as much. She spent a lot of time talking about “pipelines,” reminded us of the prime minister’s cringe infatuation with Taylor Swift, requested pitches for ideas, then spent a good chunk of time detailing her own event management experience, which amounted to running a high school car show and accidentally crushing one of the vehicles.

Several weeks ago, Upston questioned whether “concerts generate economic value” and suggested “profits tend to go offshore”. At Eventing the Future, she didn’t mention that, or tackle why her Major Events Fund specifically excludes concerts and festivals. But she did allude to an announcement that may or may not be coming next week. “We’ll have more to say, both about the one-off new fund for 2026, and further conversations about major events,” she said. Upston wrapped things up by listing a bunch of sporting events coming here.

Kneebone didn’t seem dismayed by all the problems the touring industry faces. He said it could be solved, and we know it can be done. Yesterday, The Post published an interview with former Victoria premier Jeff Kennett, who helped his state come back from rough economic times by becoming a major event destination. Kennett suggests, with a plan and the right incentives, the same thing can happen here. Kneebone agrees. “Demand for live entertainment is still growing,” he said. “Kiwis are showing up with ticket sales surpassing expectations and consistently selling out.”

Before he left, Kneebone had one more comment for the crowd. It felt like it might be aimed directly at Upston. “The most important thing we can do collectively is dispel the notion that artists are going to come to New Zealand because they like the country or because we’ve invested in infrastructure,” he said. “While every artist has their own motivation for touring, the one common denominator for every touring party is that they need to be able to afford to come here in the first place.”

Chris Schulz attended the Eventing the Future conference as a guest of NZEA.