Australia In 2025: Rapid Rises To Arenas, New Festivals… And A Long-Awaited Tax Review (Australia/New Zealand Special 2025)

ollowing P!NK and Ed Sheeran each hitting 1 million ticket sales on a single tour in 2024 – in a country with 27 million people – Australia is continuing to consolidate its reputation as a touring destination. New names are making an impact more than ever before, moving to larger venues quicker than expected.

“It’s amazing when I look at the success of singer-songwriters like the Billie Eilishes, the Olivia Rodrigos, the Gracie Abramses, the Sabrina Carpenters and Charli XCXs,” says Michael Coppel, chair at Live Nation ANZ.

“They’re going straight to arenas doing multiple shows on their first tours. It took P!NK five tours to get from arenas to stadiums.”

The Top 5 tours in Australia and New Zea- land, according to Pollstar’s ANZ Top Tour- ing Artists chart (see page 114), collectively moved over 1.87 million tickets.

Ranked by gross, the list was topped by Coldplay with a gross of $85,974,148 and 723,271 ticket stubs.

Rounding out the Top 5 were Luke Combs, Pearl Jam, Travis Scott and The Weeknd.

The leading five of 30 promoters ranked by box office revenue were Live Nation, TEG Group, Frontier Touring, Destroy All Lines and Untitled Group.

The five alone sold nearly 7 million tickets and generated close to half a billion dollars.

Tim McGregor, TEG’s global head of touring, notes, “We have seen significantly the breakthrough of the $100 psychological dollar barrier for emerging artists coming into Australia. Now it’s gone to $150 or $180.”

In some instances, with pop and rock acts, the ceiling has risen to $200.

McGregor admits: “We’ve been really concerned about exploding costs and whether the market can cope with rising ticket prices. That doesn’t seem to have been a factor in most cases.”

Chris O’Brien, GM of Destroy All Lines, points out the company is careful to convey through its marketing and social channels that the ticket prices reflect the rising costs of touring.

“People do complain about rising ticket prices so it’s good to have the conversation with them that everything in production – including staging, backline, lights, accommodation, insurance – have gone through the roof.

“We ask, ‘Hasn’t your cost of living gone up?’ Right, same with music festivals and touring. We’re not immune to it, we feel the pain too.”

FAST

Dion Brant, CEO of Frontier Touring, whose success stories included 12 arena shows by Gracie Abrams and upgrades for Benson Boone and Alex Warren to 5K-10K- cap. rooms, explains how fast things can become.

“We consistently had artists who were at 1,000-cap when we were putting offers to them. By the time we were ready to announce, they were at the 2,000 or 2,500 range,” Brant says. “By the time they got here, we were upgrading them to (7,500) arenas. It’s incredible to see.”

Nicholas Greco, co-founder and managing partner at Untitled Group explains that the company has “seen that shift really clearly, especially in the electronic space.” He adds, “Artists are moving through venue tiers at lightning speed. Acts like Marlon Hoffstadt, KI/KI, and Malugi are great examples; they’ve gone from playing club rooms to 1,000+ cap venues in what feels like a matter of months.”

Greco cites Australian DJ Dom Dolla as an example: “To go from clubs to a stadium in such a short window really shows how quick- ly audiences and communities are building around these artists.”

Untitled’s fifth ranking came from grossing $61,980,406, with a total of 682,058 tickets sold. The promoter was involved in Dom Dol- la’s massive national run (boasting over 170,000 tickets) and co-promoted Rüfüs Du Sol, along with a diverse schedule of acts including Christina Aguilera, Zach Bryan, Anyma, Kaytranada, John Summit, 2manydjs, Joy Orbison and 999999999.

“Gen Z has always been a strong part of our audience, but the connection has definitely deepened in recent years,” Greco comments. “We’ve ended up with what I’d say is one of the strongest and most genuine relationships with young audiences in the Australian music space.

He adds, “A lot of that comes down to the fact that we’ve built it ourselves — we’ve got a database of over 1.2 million fans, many of them aged 18–25, who have grown with us through festivals like Beyond The Valley, Wildlands, and Pitch Music & Arts.

“It’s not just about numbers though; it’s about the depth of the relationship. Gen Z don’t just show up to events; they’re part of the culture around them. They’re shaping the community, the sound, the aesthetic.”

A notable achievement in Australia was the number of artists who moved into stadiums.

Stray Kids became the first K-pop act to reach that level, with promoter Live Nation.

TEG took opera to stadiums with Andrea Bocelli’s April show at Sydney Cricket Ground.

In December, TEG will be part of the consortium taking EDM to the stadium level with Dom Dolla at Allianz Stadium in the Sydney suburb of Moore Park.

Luke Combs was the first country music act to hit such heights, doing double shows in four cities in January and February including Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, Sydney’s Accor Stadium, Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium and Auckland, New Zealand’s Eden Park.

Frontier Touring says he could have easily done three shows in each city, such was the demand.

Combs’ mid-afternoon set at CMC Rocks in 2018 was his first appearance outside the United States, and was the talk of the festival.

Three visits followed, jumping from the- atres to arenas in 2023.

STREAMING

Much of the fast demand in the live sector is attributed to streaming, its ability to pro- vide a musical backspace to an artist through just one playlist click, and generating FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), which sees some con- sumers buying diverse tickets to post proof on their social channels.

But for TEG, Destroy All Lines and Unti- tled Group, it’s their festivals that have been creating the pipeline for new blood.

TEG’s alliances with alt-rock promoters such as Handsome Tours and Laneway are paying off.

“They completely blow up on their debut or second tours,” relays McGregor. “The acceleration has been extraordinary. There used to be a five- or 10-year cycle to go from clubs and pubs to arenas.”

English neo-soul singer Olivia Dean, who played an afternoon slot on the Laneway fes- tival, was a favorite with the 200,000-strong crowd.

Handsome and Laneway have her for a one-off in Sydney in November, selling 7,000 tickets by early August. There are plans to bring her back in 2026 to do arenas.

Destroy All Lines – already with The Off- spring and James Blunt having their biggest crowds Down Under – turned over 100,000 for the three-show Good Things and 90,000 for Knotfest.

The buoyancy of the market gives promot- ers the incentive to expand.

Live Nation is eying adding to its portfolio of venues and brought back the Spilt Milk and Harvest Rock festivals from hiatus. LN recently increased its footprint in New Zealand acquiring festival promoter Team Event.

TEG will expand its touring division – with McGregor saying, “We are winning some tours that others might have thought were going to the big multinationals” – and expects to announce a number of new festivals over the next 12 months.

Frontier Touring will seek more opportunities in country music, and invest in parent company AEG’s AXS ticketing, new acts and new festivals, and “continue to work with governments and private companies in finding new exciting spaces to put artists in.”

Destroy All Lines takes a significant step with Park Waves touring festival, an ambitious event featuring hard rock acts under a circus top and supplemented with carnival sideshows.

With 12 promoters and 120 tours a year, touring will be a focus, and grow its successful country and comedy divisions with new partnerships.

O’Brien notes, “We don’t want to sit still. We want to be constantly creative and pushing the boundaries.”

Untitled will follow up on its momentum in Asia. Greco says: “We’ve already taken 50+ artists into the region, and that’s just the beginning, we see a lot of potential there. Looking ahead, we’re focused on building more of our own touring IP, growing into new regions, and continuing to scale in a way that still feels authentic to who we are and the artists we work with.”

CHALLENGE

The major challenge facing the Australian live sector is that while consumers will find money for international tours, grassroots venues are struggling, burdened with operational and insurance costs, and a swing away from on- site alcohol consumption by younger patrons.

In the immediate future, the live sector will focus on the cultural arts tax summit at the Sydney Opera House Sept. 26.

“It is time to talk tax,” said John Graham, a Member of the Legislative Council who serves as Minister for the Arts and Minister for Music and the Night-time Economy. “Two of the biggest levers governments have to support the arts and creative sectors are regulatory change and funding.”

TEG’s McGregor calls the current tax holding regime “too high, too draconian.”

He wants international touring acts to be able to be paid while still in the country to sort out costs incurred here, and a removal of GST from entertainment tickets to benefit local artists.

Frontier’s Brant suggests governments help by bringing down the fees paid by their arenas and stadiums, and that the insurance dilemma be addressed particularly in the festival space.

Destroy All Lines’ O’Brien insists any discussion should include how to protect live music venues, “who are closing because in- surance premiums have skyrocketed by 60%. It’s decimating the industry.”