POWER 50 2025: Sahara Herald (Frontier Touring)

BACKGROUND CHECK:

A powerhouse of the Australian music scene for decades, Sahara Herald spent 18 years working as the national event coordinator for the iconic Big Day Out festival before moving across to Frontier Touring as tour coordinator in 2014. After more than a decade at Frontier, Herald’s current role as Senior Promoter has seen her deliver countless events throughout the country that have bought in millions of ticket sales for locals and international acts across a wide-reaching array of genres, ranging from rock to pop, classical to EDM, and the ever-popular comedy world.

As Herald herself puts it, her work is all about striving to build the bridges between artist and audiences, while also ensuring that all tours feature culturally, gender and age-diverse Australian support acts, and providing local artists with the opportunities needed to reach greater heights.

THE YEAR IN AUSTRALIAN MUSIC:

There's a good chance that most music fans have been to at least one show that Herald has had a hand in throughout 2025, having overseen more than 100 sold-out regional and metropolitan shows thanks to the likes of Missy Higgins' 46-date Sound Of White tour, Katie Noonan’s 24-date Grace tour, and Jimmy Rees’ 30-date Let’s Get Regional tour, just to name a few.

Alongside representing Frontier Touring on the Australian Women in Music Awards Juror Council, presenting the Live Touring Production Award, and championing the recognition of women’s contributions across live performance and behind the scenes, Herald also played a major role in Missy Higgins’ The Second Act tour, which saw Higgins take out Best Australian Live Act at the 2024 ARIA Awards at the end of last year.

THE MUSIC SPEAKS:

Sahara Herald is one of the industry’s true unsung heroes. She’s always arguing for artist wellbeing, with an understanding that there are humans that make up the machine that we call the music industry. A strong advocate for women in the music industry via her work as an AWMA juror and a constant advocate for regional touring to stay on the touring map, cultural change in the music industry may not always have a credit attached, but in so many areas, if it did, Herald’s name would be in the mix. 

Nominated and mentioned by multiple industry figures, there’s a quiet power that comes from the deep respect of many quarters of the music business.