“The live performance industry had a record-breaking year in 2017,” said Evelyn Richardson, Chief Executive of Live Performance Australia (LPA) while releasing LPA’s 2017 Ticket Attendance and Revenue Report.
“Over 23 million Australians attended live events with over $1.88 billion generated through ticket sales. This represents a 23% growth in attendance and 32% growth in revenue nationally between 2016 and 2017.
“While contemporary music recorded its highest levels of ticket sales and revenue ($826m) and attendance (8.5m), circus and physical theatre and contemporary music festivals also recorded strong growth.
“Not only do the overall numbers show double-digit growth, it’s great to see revenue and attendance growth in all Australian states and territories.
“For the first time, Victoria takes the mantle of having the largest industry share for ticket sales revenue and attendance. Record revenue of $639m (up 45%) and attendances of 7.4m (up 35%) were driven by growth in major contemporary music concerts, musicals, circus and physical theatre and theatre”, Ms Richardson said.
Queensland experienced the largest revenue growth (up 46%) in Australia with $263.9m in ticket revenue and the third highest growth in attendances at 3.2m (up 26%). This significant growth was driven by major contemporary music concerts and major musicals.
The highest growth in attendance was seen in Tasmania (84%) followed by Victoria (35%) and Queensland (26%).
Victoria strongly outperformed NSW in the musical theatre category. Victoria generated close to twice the musical theatre revenue of NSW in 2017 posting $206m vs $117m. More than 1.9m people in Victoria attended a musical theatre show compared with 1.2m in NSW. Queensland also saw significant growth in revenue (up 34%) and attendance (up 32%) in musical theatre.
Other key results from the Report show that:
• Between 2008 and 2017 industry revenue has grown by 77% while attendance has grown by 28% since 2013.
• Between 2016 and 2017, the average ticket price grew 8% to $90.59, not quite reaching the highest average ticket price of $92.16 recorded in 2013.
• Contemporary Music and Musical Theatre continue to command the largest market share. Combined they represent 66% of industry revenue and 54% of attendance.
• Categories which experienced the largest growth in revenue and attendance between 2016 and 2017 were Contemporary Music, Circus/Physical Theatre and Festivals (contemporary music). This growth was largely driven by international acts touring Australia.
Produced annually since 2004, the Ticket Attendance and Revenue Report is the most comprehensive and reliable survey of ticket sales and attendance for Australian live performance events.
The 2017 Ticket Attendance and Revenue Report can be accessed as an interactive web-based document (available here: http://reports.liveperformance.com.au/ticket-survey-2017) or PDF and key facts and figures can be accessed via infographics for national, state and territories and genres.
