Townsville Mayor laments lack of live music acts at Queensland Country Bank Stadium

Fears that Queensland Country Bank Stadium would fail to attract major live music events appear to have been realised with Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill describing a lack of live entertainment at the venue being a "bitter disappointment".

Backed by funding from the Federal and Queensland Government, the 25,000-seat stadium opened in early 2020 with Sir Elton John performing as part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour.

Subsequently, the home venue for the NRL’s North Queensland Cowboys has hosted the Wallabies, the Matildas and boxing, but no further music concerts.

Speaking to the ABC, Mayor Hill "you can't build a stadium worth well over $300 million and just have it for sporting events.

"The community is crying out for that ability to see the odd stadium show, even if it's only once a year or twice a year."

Mayor Hill added that the lack of live music events has forced thousands of music fans from North Queensland "genuinely starved" of live music to travel south to attend concerts in capital cities.

While COVID-19 has had a major impact on live music, the commercial realities of concert tours visiting North Queensland were challenging even prior to the pandemic.

Australasian Leisure Management Publisher, Nigel Benton explains “if you look at a major act looking to fill 20,000 capacity venues during an Australian tour, they will almost inevitably visit capital cities.

“The logistics of including dates in North Queensland to a tour that already has dates in a city like Brisbane adds at least a day in equipment and teams travelling to the venue and a day in travelling back.

“So, the tour incurs extra cost for just one date in Townsville when it could have a three-night stint in Brisbane at larger venue where more tickets can be sold.”

Benton adds “in addition, Townsville doesn’t have the specialist event staff that support tours based locally so they also have to be brought in - representing a further cost.”

Other challenges have seen music festival Groovin the Moo scrapped its north Queensland leg in 2023, after more than a decade of touring to Townsville, in favour of the Sunshine Coast.

US rock band Kiss also cancelled its Queensland Country Bank Stadium show in 2022 over concerns it would clash with an NRL final.

During the pandemic, a home-grown music festival called Day Trip emerged in Townsville.

However, Festival Director Jake Reid says it will be scaled down this year telling the ABC “we're putting on fewer shows because we don't want to take as many risks and I think that has a trickle-down effect on the community.”

In 206, prior to the construction of the venue, a benefit cost ratio (BCR) analysis suggested that the venue would not be financially viable and would $500 million in its first 30 years in operation.

Foreseeing that it would only have an estimated 13 event days a year for home games for the North Queensland Cowboys - the venue received a rating of 0.214 in the Queensland Government's business case to Infrastructure Australia.

Never publicly released, the business case, prepared by the Queensland Department of State Development, found the net benefit of the venue - the difference between the present value of the total benefits and the costs - was a $170 million loss.

However, the document said despite the venue not being financially viable there were a number of social and community benefits, including "increased levels of social cohesion and well-being in the community".

At the time, the Cowboys warned that they may be forced to leave Townsville within five years if the stadium is not built.

The Tasmanian Government’s business case for its planned new Hobart Stadium suggests that the venue "will enable Tasmania to compete for arts and cultural events including major concerts, conferences, exhibitions and sporting fixtures, whose organisers currently don’t consider Tasmania as an option due to the lack of world class venue facilities and capacity constraints."

Images: Sir Elton John on his Australian tour in 2019 (top, credit: Chugg Entertainment) and Queensland Country Bank Stadium against the Townsville skyline (below, credit: Cox Architecture).