Music Industry Brainstorms Solutions As Govt Fails To Provide Roadmap Out Of COVID
A panel of experts look at the biggest hurdles the Australian music industry is currently facing and what needs to be done to save it as the country approaches the 18-month mark of its COVID-19 crisis.
The Australian music industry is a breaking point, and as the rest of the world seemingly returns to a new normal, leading industry figures have been working tirelessly on a possible roadmap out of the pandemic.
On this week’s two-part The Green Room COVID-19 special, a roundtable of industry leaders told podcast host Tiana Speter what that roadmap might look like, what Australia’s entertainment sector might look like in the coming months and years and how we can survive the ongoing lockdowns and border closures.
The conversation is quickly directed towards the vaccine as the most crucial element in rebuilding the industry.
“Really, the only way we’re going to see some sort of semblance of normalcy resume is the population being vaccinated,” Emily Ulman, Isol-Aid Festival Managing Director and Brunswick Music Festival Programmer, told Speter.
“That’s the main hold-up and that’s the main thing we can take from other countries.
“We were the gold standard for our low rates of COVID but now you look to the States and Europe and they’re opening up and they’re at events without masks on, etc. and it’s like, ‘What are we doing back here?’”
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Border closures and snap lockdowns have seen confidence within the industry shattered.
“It’s the risk-takers that drive our industry; what is going to give them the confidence to invest again?” Australia Council CEO Adrian Collette asked.
“Things like the RISE Fund, which I know that didn’t suit everyone, but that’s a couple of hundred million dollars invested.
“The good news in that is that people are getting the courage to invest in something new and the people who are getting employed are all the sole traders, the casuals, the independent workers.
“It’s about giving people the confidence to reinvest."
For John "JC" Collins, owner of The Triffid, co-owner of The Fortitude Music Hall, opening up touring again in a secure manner is a definite way to restore confidence.
“What we’d like to see in the Parliament up here is talking about how we can get musicians across borders in travel bubbles, much like sporting people do,” he said.
“I’ve applied for about three exemptions and haven’t got one, and there’s a bit of work in that. I know they did it successfully in South Australia with the Summer Series Festival earlier in the year. I have friends who did that and they were police escorted.
“We’ve offered up that as a solution for our industry, even if it’s a certain number of musicians we can get across in a month, just so we can operate and have shows, because that’s what will keep us in business.”
Collins has also reached out to Arts Queensland to discuss the potential of Queensland Health opening up The Fortitude Music Hall as a vaccination clinic.
“My staff could help with admin and that would keep them employed and maybe cover some of Fortitude’s rent,” Collins said.
“It’s an absolute disgrace and they should hang their heads in shame.”
On the vaccine rollout, Chris O’Hearn of management and PR company Thrillhill Music, noted: “The Prime Minister has said, on more than one occasion, that it’s not a race.
“Now, I’m no genius, but I would have thought that in the middle of a pandemic when you’re trying to save businesses, when you’re trying to save people’s income, when you’re actually trying to save people’s lives… and I’m not just talking about people dying from the disease, I’m talking about people’s mental state of mind.
“How many people do we know in our industry alone who have taken their lives in the past 18 months. And if that’s not a fucking race, I don’t know what is. It’s an absolute disgrace and they should hang their heads in shame and should be ashamed of themselves.”
Dean Ormston, CEO of APRA AMCOS, said that “we need to be looking at every opportunity and assessing what might work in this territory”.
“One of the things that we’ve been working on and got some success on a few months ago, through Sounds Australia, was going to Border Force to say, ‘The US market (who would have thought) has reopened quicker than we’ve reopened, so we need to help our superstar acts get out of Australia and get to the US market and European markets to make the most of the summer touring circuit.
“To the Government’s credit, Border Force has been incredibly supportive and have helped fast-track these arrangements for those acts that had the opportunity to get to the US. These people are like the Olympians of the music industry, and their time is now – if you miss those opportunities, it’s not just that tour and the dollars around it, it’s an opportunity lost.
“What will happen is, festival buyers will look to acts from other parts of the world to fill their festivals if we can’t get there, so we absolutely need to keep an eye on what’s happening globally.”
“A bit more harmonisation between those policies is what’s in order.”
At a local level, Ormston said it’s all about getting venue capacities back to normal via policies at a state level.
“This difference between the freedoms within the sports industry and other industries seems like it’s been almost arbitrarily determined,” Maggie Collins, Executive Director of the Association of Artist Managers, told Speter.
“I know obviously there’s been Chief Health Officers who have been involved in making those decisions and a lot of sports events have been able to happen because they’re outdoors, and I totally get that, in fact, I love sports, but I just wish there was the same scientific common sense applied to say a 200-capacity venue where, everyone in the room, you’ve got their details, you can contact them really quickly and it’s all contained.
“Yes, it is indoors and there is some concern with that, but at least you can contact them really quickly and it’s really organised. Whereas with sporting events, you’ve got mingling of thousands of people going into the venues and out of the venues and then going on trains and buses, and they’re all in enclosed spaces when they get there.
“A bit more harmonisation between those policies is what’s in order.”
Stephen Wade, CEO of Select Music and Chairperson of ALMBC, said: “Our industry is completely in the hands of health officials and government… we have no control over our industry.
“I can’t decide if I want to put 50 bands out next weekend touring – I’m not allowed to, because of Government and health officials, which we understand, and as an industry, we’ve been respectful, but if you are going to control our industry, then you have to provide us with the roadmap.
“The Government has to tell the music industry how we get out of this and where and at what time.”
The Green Room COVID-19 special also features Melbourne singer-songwriter Alex Lahey, Annabelle Herd (CEO of ARIA), Brian "Smash" Chladil (CEO of Oztix), Clive Miller (CEO of Support Act), Nicholas Greco (Director of Untitled Group), Paul Fletcher (Minister for the Arts), Paul Piticco (Splendour and Secret Sounds Group Co-CEO), Peter Noble (Bluesfest Festival Director) and Tony Burke (Shadow Minister for the Arts).
You can listen to both episodes below, on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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