As Parliament House listens to the Inquiry into the challenges and opportunities within the Australian live music industry, local music venues are struggling to survive. Australian Live Music Business Council joined ABC News to discuss the financial difficulties venues and artists are facing.
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00:00All of the things that we see across the economy generally, you know, rising costs of things
00:05like insurance, electricity, for venues, that's been particularly tricky.
00:10Insurance costs have gone up, you know, three, four hundred percent.
00:14And energy costs, the cost of security.
00:17And then on top of that, you've got, you know, fans who are having trouble with cost of living
00:22really being very careful about how they spend their money.
00:25So unfortunately, we've seen festivals not go ahead.
00:30And in the in the venues that we mostly represent, the smaller grassroots side of the business,
00:36it really is quite difficult for them to stay open.
00:38And we've seen a range of closures, unfortunately, as a result of all of that.
00:42There is no substitute, really, for people going along to have that live music connection
00:47in a venue.
00:49But you know, the pay packets of artists really hasn't changed.
00:53And many times they're traveling on tours, making almost nothing.
00:58I mean, a lot of these smaller tours for emerging artists, they're paying, they're actually
01:03coming home broke, having made no money at all.
01:06It's not a sob story.
01:07This is just the reality of the way, you know, the market works.