Independent festival and ticketing businesses critical of multinational companies benefitting from government funding progams

Amid the challenges facing outdoor festivals and with Federal and state government stepping in with funding programs, live performance industry stakeholders are questioning whether support will address the industry’s structural problems of ownership concentration and lack of competition.

As reported today by Guardian Australia, Brian ‘Smash’ Chladil, co-founder of Oztix, Australia’s largest independent live music ticketing company, said no multinational should be being propped up by Australian taxpayers.

Chladil advised “I don’t know how this happened, but there is no reason at all that any government should be financially supporting any festival, venue or event that is being promoted by these large foreign owned companies.”

With a range of festivals cancelled or permanently halted, the crisis has seen NSW's Splendour in the Grass (the biggest music festival in the country) called off in March while in February, the touring festival Groovin the Moo was cancelled due to insufficient ticket sales. In addition, last year's Falls Festival took a break while, earlier this month, Tasmania’s Mona Foma announced that it would no longer be held.

Amid a range of state government programs to support the industry, the Greens are currently urging the Federal Government to find emergency funding in the May budget to support festivals through the current crisis.

On Sunday, the Victorian Government announced it would make available grants of up to $50,000 each to established festival organisers.

However, a number of live music industry operators have called for Australian governments to pause funding for the festival sector in the aftermath of several cancellations.

This followed Guardian Australia reporting at the weekend that the USA-based multinational Live Nation Entertainment, whose Secret Sounds subsidiary own major Australian festivals including Splendour in the Grass, Spilt Milk, the Falls festival and Harvest Rock, generated US$22.75 billion in total revenue in 2023 and posted a net profit of US$563 million.

Since Covid crippled the live music sector in 2020/21, Secret Sounds and Live Nation Australia festivals have received more than $16 million in government grants, including $1.09 million for a 2021 festival that was subsequently cancelled and $2.6 million for the partially washed out 2022 edition of Splendour.

Today, Guardian Australia quoted veteran live music operator Paul Curtis, who has spent three decades running festivals and concert tours, as saying he felt “slightly ill” when he learned how much public money had gone to promotions companies owned by Live Nation.

Curtis questioned why the Greens continued to push for more funding to companies operating in Australia that were ultimately controlled by large overseas corporations, adding “it’s tick-a-box funding from a lazy government that just chucks money at the big players because they all still believe in the trickle down thing.

“But it doesn’t trickle down. It just stays at the top. It’s myopic thinking.”

Paul Sloan, a producer and agent for artists including Nick Cave, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Bon Iver and Amyl & the Sniffers, said festival goers and artists were losing out because of Live Nation’s vertically integrated business model, where it owns or manages venues, represents artists and holds exclusive ticketing rights through Ticketmaster.

Sloan is one of a number of music industry professionals who have been forwarding allegations of anti-competitive behaviour by Live Nation to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The ACCC said it did not comment on complaints relating to individual businesses, or whether a business was under investigation.

Sloan said it was unacceptable for companies ultimately owned by global multinationals such as Live Nation to receive government funding, and the fact that more than a dozen music festivals had fallen over in the past 12 months was proof that business models like Live Nation’s would ultimately fail.

He told Guardian Australia “because (Live Nation) is not, at its heart, a real music business.”

Sloan said it was telling that although Live Nation Entertainment claims its core business is “being the largest producer of live music concerts in the world”, it consistently posts sizeable annual losses in that arm of its business - US$64 million in 2023. The profits Live Nation posts each year, according to its annual reports, come from the fees charged on top of each ticket and its resale operations.

Sloan added “the corporate structure works against the only two elements with any value - the artist and consumer.

“And if you don’t respect and consider the artist and the consumer, they will both at some point turn against you.”

Images: Splendour in the Grass has been cancelled for 2024 (top) while the Falls festival took a break last year (below).