For the very first time, Victoria has overtaken New South Wales to claim the largest share of Australia’s live performance attendance and revenue.
Live Performance Australia’s latest Ticket Attendance And Revenue Report shows that Victoria — which could already claim Melbourne as the live music capital of the world — is now dominating the live performance economy.
The new report shows that in 2017, Victoria achieved record revenue of $639 million (up 45 per cent on the previous year) and a staggering 7.4 million in attendance (up 35 per cent).
LPA Chief Executive Evelyn Richardson says Victoria’s huge numbers “were driven by growth in major contemporary music concerts, musicals, circus and physical theatre and theatre”.
Victoria also strongly outperformed NSW in the musical theatre category, generating almost twice the revenue of its neighbour state.
The report also shows that Australia’s music festival market has recovered slightly, after last year’s figures showed a dramatic decrease in festival attendance and revenue.
Contemporary music festivals experienced “a significant increase in revenue” in 2017, jumping 26 per cent to $100.7 million. Attendance also increased by 26.7 per cent to 0.85 million, as NSW continued to generate the largest amount of festival revenue and attendance.
Overall, Australia’s live performance industry “had a record-breaking year in 2017″, Ms Richardson says.
“Over 23 million Australians attended live events with over $1.88 billion generated through ticket sales. This represents a 23 per cent growth in attendance and 32 per cent growth in revenue nationally between 2016 and 2017.”
Queensland experienced the largest revenue growth overall, while Tasmania saw the highest attendance growth.
Live Performance Australia’s 2017 Ticket Attendance and Revenue Survey can be read in full right here.
