Aussie Live Sector Worth $1.3B

The Australian live performance sector turned over $1.3 billion last year, with 17.5 million attending shows.

This is according to the 8th Ticket Attendance & Revenue Survey, released Aug. 20 by Live Performance Australia (LPA).

Attendance was up by .6 percent. Revenue dropped slightly to 1.3 billion from $1.32 billion in 2010, due to a 0.7 percent fall in average ticket prices from $86.43 to $85.86, and a slightly larger proportion of complimentary, sponsor and zero-priced tickets.

Last year, more than 17.3 million tickets for Live Entertainment Industry events were issued. That’s up from 2008 and 2009 but down from 2007’s pre-global recession levels.

Contemporary music, which remained the largest sector with a 41.3 percent share of the market, posted an 18.2 percent drop.

This was, said LPA, because 2010 had been a bumper year for high-volume tours by U2, AC/DC, Bon Jovi and Metallica.

Music festivals also showed a dip. The biggest revenue growth was for circus and physical theatre (a rise of 464.3 percent), children’s/family events (88.1 percent) and comedy (33.2 percent) due to stand-out single events including Cirque de Soleil’s “Saltimbanco” and Walking With Dinosaurs.

LPA chief executive Evelyn Richardson cited sharper marketing and social media interaction by promoters.

“There’s certainly more of a conversation between promoters and audiences than in the past – which allows promoters to give people more of what they want,” she told Pollstar.

This survey saw the Foxtix ticketing agency and the Melbourne Recital Centre included in data sources. For the first time, the live industry was provided with a breakdown of revenue and attendance by state.

“We’d love to do more research, into sponsorship or consumer drivers, but we are a relatively small team so change has to happen incrementally,” Richardson said.