‘It's unfeasible to run this model much longer': is this the end of the Australian regional tour?
In late April, Australian folk singer-songwriter Kim Churchill took to Instagram with a plea to his fans. After driving 2,500km to Cairns on a national tour with more than 50 stops, Churchill warned that his show at Tanks Arts Centre was teetering on being cancelled. 'Ticket sales have been so slow,' he wrote. 'It's looking like it's going to cost me $3,000 to $5,000 to play my own show.' Days later, accompanying a video of cheering fans, the singer wrote that the show broke even two hours before doors – and that he'd 'do it all again' for Cairns.
This 11th-hour turnaround exemplifies the high-wire risks and rewards of regional touring for Australian musicians. This year, a host of high-profile artists have toured regional Australia, including Fanning Dempsey National Park, Sarah Blasko, Northlane, Lime Cordiale and Amy Shark, with hard-crunching bands Thy Art is Murder and Make Them Suffer heading out this month. Meanwhile, in the wake of the demise of Groovin the Moo, regional festival Spilt Milk – held later this year – has pulled off the show-stopping 2025 double bill of Kendrick Lamar and Doechii, while Tasmania's independent Party in the Paddock festival drew record crowds in February.
Amid these promising signs, Australian artists are measuring a genuine desire to take their music to regional areas against significant financial, logistical and ethical challenges, which include rising travel costs, often gruelling distances between shows, climate concerns and a wider trend for last-minute ticket buying. Live music venue operators in regional areas are also feeling the precarity of the moment, particularly as public liability premiums have climbed steeply since the Covid pandemic began.
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And with approximately seven million Australians living in rural and remote areas – and the discoverability of Australian music at an 'historical low', according to Creative Australia analysis released this week – reaching these audiences remains vital.
Before Kim Churchill's almost-cancellation in Cairns, Brisbane rock trio DZ Deathrays made a similar appeal to fence-sitting ticket buyers in February, sharing that they'd been advised to cancel their show at the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine 'and potentially others' on their regional tour. 'We've decided to run the risk of ruin and continue the show for those who have already bought tickets, but it's unfeasible to run this model much longer,' the band wrote on social media.
Speaking to Guardian Australia in April, DZ Deathrays drummer Simon Ridley summed it up another way: 'It's a lot having a thing on sale for three months and having to wait right until the end to figure out whether it was worth it or not.' While the Castlemaine show scraped through, a later gig in Albury, Western Australia, was cancelled after the venue 'got a bit too skittish' about low ticket sales. The previous weekend, their first-ever show in Bundaberg – Ridley and bandmate Shane Parsons' home town – had gone from under 100 presales to becoming the sold-out tour highlight. As Ridley sees it, 'It's just gambling, and some people don't want to gamble.'
Gamilaraay singer-songwriter and self-described 'country girl at heart' Thelma Plum is currently travelling Australia for her winkingly titled I'm Sorry, Where is That? regional tour. Growing up between Brisbane and her grandparents' farm in Delungra, New South Wales, Plum recalls the profound impact of seeing First Nations pop duo Shakaya live as a teen. Despite the occasional 'logistical nightmare' of regional touring, she feels an abiding commitment to show up for her fans outside the capital cities.
'Visibility is really important to me,' she says. 'There's just something really deadly and empowering about seeing young Aboriginal girls singing back at me.'
Artists hitting the road are also motivated by reaching new listeners who may otherwise not engage with Australian music on streaming services. Creative Australia's latest report found only 8% of the top 10,000 artists streamed in Australia in 2024 were Australian, as listeners increasingly favour music by US artists.
Having observed this shift, the MusicNSW managing director, Joe Muller, frames regional touring as an antidote to the 'algorithmification' of music discovery. 'The idea that your audience is in that black box in your pocket, off you go and conquer, has certainly created challenges,' he says. 'We don't have a supply problem. It is a demand problem in the sense that our audiences are looking all across the world for the art they consume, rather than the historic models of looking to their own communities first.'
No strangers to regional touring, punk-rock mainstays Frenzal Rhomb are back on the road to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their album A Man's Not a Camel. Now with day jobs and middle-aged commitments, guitarist Lindsay 'The Doctor' McDougall says the band's decision to only book weekend shows is in sharp contrast to their first nationwide tour in 2001, which saw them driving from town to town across three months with Californian bands Mad Caddies and Strung Out. ('Mad Caddies couldn't hack it and went home,' McDougall quips.) His memories of that tour include inviting the 20-odd kids who showed up in Katherine to play with them on stage, and an irate punter in Mount Isa ending the night crying on frontman Jay Whalley's shoulder.
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On this latest tour, Frenzal Rhomb is happily a legacy act with multigenerational appeal. 'People who listened to us in the 90s are about the same age as us, but they've all made better financial decisions,' McDougall says. 'They can afford to come and buy tickets for their kids.'
Having lost money touring the US, the band are now happy to break even at home. 'It's not like we need to tour here to build up our cash reserves to go conquer some other continent,' McDougall adds. 'We're lucky there's enough people in Australia to come watch us.'
With vast distances to cover, often by plane, the environmental impact of regional touring is also a key concern. In 2024, Green Music Australia updated its Sound Country sustainability guide, which includes pointers for musicians on topics such as low-carbon transport, waste reduction, ethical merchandise and First Nations principles. Paul Kelly, David Bridie and Montaigne are among the guide's advocates, as well as Missy Higgins and Regurgitator, who have both publicly strived for carbon-neutral national tours.
Muller, who will oversee the next Regional & Remote Music Summit in Byron Bay this July, is focused on sustainability, both in terms of minimising environmental impact and helping regional artists build sustainable careers. Regarding the environmental footprint of regional touring, he argues, 'The impact of delivering one exclusive show in a metro centre and expecting all of your audience to travel in is far greater than getting in the Tarago and meeting people where they live.'
The considerations of prominent artists touring regional Australia is just one part of a larger, more complex picture. At the inaugural Regional & Remote Music Summit, held in Darwin last August, music industry experts and policymakers discussed strategies to support musicians living in regional and remote areas, including grassroots and government-backed opportunities to tour.
The event's executive producer, Laura Harper, highlights 'inbound' music tourism initiatives such as the Queensland Music Trails as a necessary counterbalance to the 'fly-in, fly-out model of touring'. Harper also notes a shift towards artists and managers booking their own tour routes rather than relying on major tour promoters.
'It's really hard to predict audiences post-Covid,' she says. 'There's not a lot of guarantees now. I think artists are probably a bit more willing to take a risk, because they're the ones trying to build an audience.'
And while the perilous state of Australian music festivals draw headlines, Muller points to the 'absolutely thriving' smaller regional festivals that 'really nail the audience experience for the folks who are of that place'. He cites the Aboriginal arts and culture-focused Giiyong festival on the far south coast of NSW, while Frenzal Rhomb's McDougall enthuses about DIY heavy metal festival Blacken Open Air, held on Arrernte country near Alice Springs, which his band are booked to play this September.
No matter the hurdles and broader trends, regional touring remains deeply ingrained in the Australian music ecosystem. Remembering how it felt when Frenzal Rhomb and Jebediah played Bundaberg in his youth, DZ Deathrays' Simon Ridley sums up the eternal appeal for artists and fans alike: 'It just means a lot when a band comes through your home town.'
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