Australian News: Festicket, Michael Gudinski, Louie Knuxx, Live Music Awards

UK festival ticket and travel booking platform Festicket is expanding its presence in Australia.

Tim Glenane, of Eventbrite and Ticketek, joined Sam Owens (head of business development, APAC) as regional operations manager.

Festicket will hire account managers and timezone specific customer support staff as part of its investment in new talent, resources, tech partnerships and increased physical presence.

 “This is a hugely exciting time at Festicket as we continue to ramp up our operations in Australia and roll out our new end-to-end (ticketing, access control and cashless POS platform) Event Genius offering,” Owens said. 

The new festivals are both in Queensland. The inaugural reggae, hip hop and alt-rock Promiseland stages at Doug Jennings Park on the Gold Coast October 2 and already sold out.

The Grass Is Greener returns to the Cairns Showgrounds Oct. 23.

They join Lost Paradise, Wildlands and For the Love from earlier in the year.

Michael Scott, general manager of ASM Global’s RAC Arena in Perth was inducted into the Australian Hotels Association’s (Western Australia) Hall of Fame as parts of its August 9 awards for excellence.

After Scott thanked his team (“brilliant at everything I am awful at and that makes an outstandingly balanced team”) he ended on a high note: “We’re seeing events return in number… We’re certainly looking to 2022 as a bumper year.” 

One of the projects Michael Gudinski was working on at the time of his death this year— Long Play Music Films—launches September.

It’s a film distribution and production company focused on exhibiting new music documentaries, biopics and concert films in cinemas. 

The first, out September 29, is director Emer Reynolds’ Phil Lynott: Songs For While I’m Away about the late frontman of UK band Thin Lizzy. It includes footage from steps of Sydney Opera House to 100,000 which began with a sound check turned a 30-minute jam for early arrivals.

The first domestic projects in the pipeline are concert footage with R&B singer Jimmy Barnes and doco based on the memoirs of revered First Australian singer songwriter Archie Roach.

New Zealand rapper Louie Knuxx died in Australia, during a run in August 13. He was 42. Born Todd Williams, he started in Dirtbag District, Breakin Wreckwordz and Young, Gifted and Broke. 

Wasted Youth, PGT/GRR (Progressive Gangsta Thug/Gentleman Romance Rap) and Tiny Warm Hearts were among the rawest of rap albums. In 2019 he moved to Melbourne working with at-risk and disengaged youth. Within four hours,  the hip hop community raised NZ$25,000 (US $17,562) to fly his body home.

Music charity Support Act, whose helpline is getting 500 emergency calls a week as the Delta strain creates more unemployment, got a further A$20 million ($146 million) boost from the Aussie government.

Under its terms, the new funding will expand to those in theatre, dance, circus and opera.

“The impacts of the Delta variant are going to be felt for quite some months and this additional support from the government will help to ensure that more people are able to access our crisis relief and mental health and wellbeing services,” Support Act CEO Clive Miller said.

The sixth National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) were postponed to 2022, with founder Larry Heath explaining “with a year of lockdowns and closed borders, there is no national live music scene to celebrate right now.” 

Heath ran the event in 2020 as a hybrid, with 50,000 tuning in worldwide for the digital portion  and live performances in Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth.