Many of Australia’s live music business models are “broken and unsustainable”, a parliamentary inquiry into the crisis-hit sector has heard.
But overseas-based companies such as Live Nation and TEG, the large tour promotion multinationals that have come under criticism during the inquiry, are not the problem, the industry’s peak body says.
It argues they’re part of the solution.
Giving evidence in Melbourne on Tuesday, Live Performance Australia (LPA), which represents more than 400 concert promoters, ticketing companies and live performance venues, was grilled on the issue of market concentration.
LPA’s outgoing chief executive, Evelyn Richardson, said the inquiry had so far witnessed a “fair amount of chest-beating and unsubstantiated claims” but no concrete evidence had been provided.
“It’s been very disappointing to hear some of the misinformed statements made by earlier witnesses around the role of our largest promoters, specifically the accusations of anticompetitive behaviour, systemic exploitation … multinationals being the cause of the Australian music industry’s problems,” she said.
“We would note that our companies work within the competition and consumer legislative framework, and other than some very direct accusations, not one submission or witness has presented any solid evidence to support these claims. We deal in facts, and the facts are, the live music industry is global. The world has changed. Many models in the live music industry are broken and unsustainable.”
The inquiry’s chair, Labor MP Brian Mitchell, put to Richardson that some solutions proposed during the inquiry would impact LPA’s biggest members, “because the evidence that we’ve taken points the finger” at their business models and practices.
More than 40 Australian music festivals have been cancelled, evacuated, postponed or relocated, according to research tabled at Tuesday’s hearing.
But contrary to much previous evidence – which put changing consumer habits behind the failing sector – the RMIT associate professor Catherine Strong told the hearing that extreme weather events caused by the climate crisis had taken the confidence out of the market.
More than half of the disruptions, caused by dangerously high temperatures, bushfires, heavy rain or flooding, had occurred since the Covid pandemic.
The joint submission tabled by academics from RMIT, La Trobe and Griffith universities said the sector was ill-prepared for what was coming and in need of policy intervention.
They referred to last year’s Creative Australia survey of 51 music festival organisers, in which almost half identified extreme weather events as having a moderate to severe effect on their festival.
“Risks and costs are distributed unequally, according to resources and relative bargaining power,” Strong’s co-authored submission said.
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“[This is] contributing to market concentration and threatening diversity and innovation.”
At an inquiry hearing in Sydney on 26 July, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance said the Australian live music industry had fallen victim to “Amazonification” by three dominating multinationals, whose vertical integration business models have seen large corporations controlling Australian venues, ticket sales, merchandise and artists.
In the US, Live Nation is facing a civil lawsuit by the Department of Justice, which is alleging the company engages in “unlawful, anticompetitive conduct” to exercise monopolistic control over the live events industry. Live nation calls the allegations baseless.
At the inquiry last month, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) asserted that it was following the US lawsuit closely, acknowledging there was “some consistency in behaviours” exercised by Live Nation in Australia which were now the subject of the lawsuit in the US.
But on Tuesday Richardson said the three major promoters played a crucial role in the Australian market, employing 1,500 people directly across the country and generating about 85% of total live music ticket revenue.
“They invest in people, they invest in artists, they invest in infrastructure, they invest in technology and innovation,” she said.
“It’s capital-intensive with a high degree of risk, which requires companies that have the financial backing and risk appetite to ride through the ups and downs of audience demand and preference.”
Richardson said the multinationals’ vertical integration business models, which are now coming under attack as anticompetitive in the US, were necessary to allow for different parts of the business to subsidise others parts in a volatile and highly competitive market.
“We’ve got three major players competing against each other,” she said.
“They’re also competing against every other city and market in the world … it’s very important that we maintain those three players if we want to maintain our place in the global live music market.”