It's not hard to see where the average Australian's interest lies. Late last year, a new report from Live Nation broke the news that live music has overtaken the likes of sport, film, and even sex as the top form of entertainment that punters engage in.
Add in the fact that 78% of the 40,000 respondents describe concerts as their “most memorable life moments,” and that nearly six in ten Australians surveyed said they travel for shows yearly, and it's easy to see why the likes of event tourism is a field that is doing so well.
One person that understands the world of event tourism and how it connects to avenues such as music is Roger Field.
Having kicked off his career in the mid-'90s, Field's resumé is an impressive one, which has seen him go from working with the likes of Ticketek Australia and working on event marketing and ticketing at Melbourne Park, to spending a decade as the CEO of Live Nation Australia, and an additional four years as the President of the Asia Pacific region for the company.
"It's been fairly organic with a bit of good fortune," Field says of his career trajectory. "It's a classic story of this industry where you get in at the beginning, whatever angle that is, and you grab every opportunity that comes your way."
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Field announced his departure from Live Nation in late 2023, and in 2024 he launched Further Afield, before becoming a partner with My Way Travel & Events. Part of the Helloworld Travel Group, My Way specialises in premium travel and event experiences, providing access to sporting events, global concerts, theatre presentations, and more.
"The idea of My Way is kind of in the name of the business," Field explains. "It's taking a little bit of ownership back from the fans and the promoter's perspective, and reconnecting that relationship by providing a convenient solution for the fan to come to events."
Field's role within the company sees offering assistance in areas including growth, strategy, and myriad others, but also aiding the travel side of the business, and understanding some of the challenges of the live entertainment music industry.
"This sort of business is pretty au fait with working with sport, there's quite a lot of sport offerings and a few companies that deal with travel packaging for sport, but there are a number of factors that make it a little more challenging with music and live entertainment," he notes.
Using his experience, he's able to open this dialogue with others in the industry to attempt to pre-empt what may happen in regards to the unforeseen, the unexpected, and the unreliable, and ensuring they stay on top of that.
"That could be a tour on-sale date moving, or something that we're anticipating coming that suddenly isn't coming anymore; the dates change," he notes. "All the stuff that people in touring are very familiar with, but it's a really foreign industry to anybody who's not in it and hasn't been brought up in it."
Indeed, while it might be relatively commonplace for a live event to shift venues at the last minute, or be forced to cancel due to myriad factors, it's far less common for something like an AFL game – or a high-profile finals match – to move at the eleventh hour.
However, this need to be agile and responsive is crucial in any business, especially one which is continuously growing.
Just last year, Mediaweek reported that the 2024/2025 summer period had seen a 2.3% increase in audiences buying tickets to sporting events when compared to the previous year. That same report outlined that music events made up just half of all ticket sales, falling 2.5% from 52% the previous year.
It follows, then, that with an increase in ticket sales, event tourism is also growing. The question needs to be asked then, what is driving this growth? As Field explains, it's important to remember in a country such as Australia, people have always travelled to events.
"I think the trend of residencies is having a big impact, combined with the states sort of competing with each other to have destination events to get tourist visitation," he explains. "Major artists have wanted to limit the number of cities that they have to trail around in Australia for a long time because it's a really expensive territory to tour.
"I just looked at the Live Performance Australia ticketing report from 2024, and about 63% of the ticketed attendance for that year came from New South Wales and Victoria. So when you look at that concentration of attendees, and then you look at the breadth of our country and the cost of moving those major shows around it does make a lot of sense that those major artists can potentially play two markets and spend a lot less on producing a tour.
"Yes, they may possibly lose some fans by not going to their markets, but they'll actually still get a pretty high attendance rate," he adds.
With artists – especially international acts – consolidating their touring schedule to the major cities and having large-scale attendance, it tracks that more punters from across the country would be travelling to ensure they're in the crowd.
Field points out that this was a trend he was noticing while serving as President of APAC for Live Nation. Given that it was a noted trend of people building holidays around major events in the aftermath of the COVID era, it again tracks that this has since continued in the ensuing years.
"The requests that we've had from our agents and customers from a My Way and Helloworld perspective, it's things like Tomorrowland and Coachella that are up there with those sorts of events that people have always wanted to go to," he explains.
"But you're not going to fly to the US to go to Coachella and then turn around and come back. You'll build a holiday in North America around that. And I think that's translated as well into people realising life's a bit too short, and if your favourite act announces that they're going to tour in North America or they're going to tour in Europe, you really don't know if they're going to come down here.
"So I think there's a bit of a 'why wait' attitude," he adds. "I think there was a lot of that with Oasis, because people had limited faith that they might actually get down here and stay together as long as they did."
When it comes to how music and sport mix in terms of what audiences desire, Field explains that it's actually a rather even distribution. "I'd say it's probably a fifty-fifty split," he says.
"The fact we're seeing so many more stadium concerts and events coming through is going to sort of keep that trend on its toes, and I think sporting events have long been considered as the sort of things that you've got to be at in terms of destination.
"But you're seeing a lot more sporting events putting music into their offering – whether it be the AFL Grand Final, LIV Golf, et cetera – because I think they realise that it's a critical component.
"And I think the mindset's shifted a little bit in the patrons' consideration of traveling to a major music event and seeing it as a marquee event, and it's not just the sports hogging that," he adds.
"Things like the Foo Fighters down in Geelong or Tasmania, Coldplay in Perth – there's lots of entities realising the attraction power of these major events. So it's great for the live entertainment industry because it's making people take bigger steps and take bigger risks in terms of what they offer, and it's continuing to make this market look attractive for international touring to make the trip down to."
A cursory look at the My Way site sees offerings for big sporting events such as the 2026 bp Adelaide Grand Final, the AFL Grand Final, and the Australian Open. Meanwhile, music-lovers can find packages for artists such as Robbie Williams, Harry Styles, and the Foo Fighters, while expressions of interest are open now for Coachella 2027.
With such diverse packages on offer, what then makes for a desirable package? Obviously inclusive travel packages remove the headaches of sorting travel and accommodation, but what is it that draws in potential customers? In a word, Field says it boils down to convenience.
"Every fan wants to know that they've secured a ticket, that's the first thing" he explains. "And that certainty of being able to know that that's been taken care of, but then simultaneously, to also know that you don't have to worry about all of the other logistics of getting to the event, that's a major factor, especially for those hard-to-get events.
"I think people always are looking for value in everything they do as well. Generally we find that when we put a package together and then we go and assess what it would cost for someone to do that themselves – buying things at the rate that they are on offer if you can still get the tickets or the hotels – we generally come in cheaper.
"That's because we're partnering with the promoter and the hotels, and the buying power that we collectively have to actually deliver something that's better value before it actually goes to market. People want something special as well, so we always try to put something that's unique in the package."
In terms of the special things that are on offer, Field points to the premium experiences available for events at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, and offering hotel packages for Beyond The Valley patrons, allowing them to stay in nearby Geelong rather than camping on-site.
"The audiences, they're going to these events year on year, but they're also getting older and they want a bit more convenience," he explains. "We actually had someone from San Diego book one of our packages as they were boarding the flight in LA to come down here, and we still had access for them to, to the, to sold out festival.
"It came with a hotel, so they landed at Tullamarine, headed down to Geelong, checked into their hotel, and then caught one of our transfers out to the festival. I think that's a great example of what that value, convenience, and attainability is."
One of things that My Way aims to do in the modern age is to reverse the idea of making consumers fend for themselves in the digital ticketing age and to bring convenience back into the equation.
"I see it as you've got two obligations," Field explains. "One is to remove obstacles to your audience that stop people buying tickets because we've made it all just too hard, and the other one is to find new opportunities for revenue.
"I think people are spending this money anyway, but it's just splintering away. So as a promoter, I look at it as an opportunity to provide some convenience to make it easier for more people to come to events, and an opportunity for me to participate in more than just the ticket revenue."
Late last year, My Way underlined its commitment to the world of sport by announcing a partnership with the Collingwood Football Club.
Per an announcement on the Club's site, My Way "will deliver all of the Club's internal non-team-specific travel requirements," along with providing "fans with opportunities to enjoy world-class sporting and entertainment events, including Collingwood matches and events across Australia."
While this is great news for sports fans (and specifically, supporters and Members of Collingwood), this raises questions about the sort of opportunities that are available for music fans. As Field explains, My Way is already three steps ahead, having received positive support from the likes of Live Nation and Untitled about future opportunities.
"The sporting industry has been doing it for a long time, and the live entertainment industry takes a long time to change," he explains. "It's a combination of all of the stakeholders that have to be persuaded to take a particular path and then that sort of tendency – because everyone's so busy – to think it's all a bit too hard.
"The message I keep putting out there is that these opportunities will grow with a consistency of offering when people start to learn that this is something where, for every show at this venue or for every show with this promoter, I can take this option and know that it's legit, it's going to be good, and I don't have to worry about everything else.
"When we first started doing VIP packages way back in 2010, I think there was a bit of that attitude where it was a hard sell-in with the artist, it was quite hard, and what we delivered was inconsistent," he adds. "But we stuck at it, and it turned into one of the biggest revenue generators of most of the major concerts that come through."
He notes though, that while this sort of thing does take a "fair bit of work," the end results for everyone are a net positive that are worth working towards.
"What the partnership with Collingwood demonstrates is that we're open to what it looks like, too," he states. "That it can be sort of owned to the consumer as a particular company's offering or a particular club's offering.
"There are businesses in the live entertainment space that do it really well. You look at Tomorrowland and what they offer, and André Rieu does it all the way through Europe and all his shows.
"So I'm pretty determined to keep at it," he adds. "And I understand the roadblocks and the challenges, but I'm also solutions-focused and pretty persistent."
More information about My Way Travel & Events and their current offerings are available via their website.
