Disclaimer

Ernst & Young (EY) was engaged on the instructions of Live Performance Australia (LPA) to prepare the 2018 Ticket Attendance and Revenue Report ("Report"), in accordance with the contract dated 9 April 2019.

The results of EY’s work, including the assumptions and qualifications made are set out in this Report. The Report should be read in its entirety including the introductory chapters, the applicable scope of the work and any limitations.  A reference to the Report includes any part of the Report.  No further work has been undertaken by EY since the date of the Report to update it.

EY has prepared the Report for the benefit of LPA and has considered only the interests of LPA. EY has not been engaged to act, and has not acted, as advisor to any other party. Accordingly, EY makes no representations as to the appropriateness, accuracy or completeness of the Report for any other party's purposes.

No reliance may be placed upon the Report or any of its contents by any recipient of the Report for any purpose. Any party receiving a copy of the Report must make and rely on their own enquiries in relation to the issues to which the Report relates, the contents of the Report and all matters arising from or relating to or in any way connected with the Report or its contents.

EY disclaims all responsibility to any other party for any loss or liability that the other party may suffer or incur arising from or relating to or in any way connected with the contents of the Report, the provision of the Report to the other party or the reliance upon the Report by the other party.

No claim or demand or any actions or proceedings may be brought against EY arising from or connected with the contents of the Report or the provision of the Report to any party. EY will be released and forever discharged from any such claims, demands, actions or proceedings.

EY’s liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.

The information and analysis contained in this Report is based on ticketing data provided by Survey Participants as outlined in Appendix B of this Report. We have not independently verified, or accepted any responsibility or liability for independently verifying, any such information nor do we make any representation as to the accuracy or completeness of the information.

Any commercial decisions taken by LPA are not within the scope of our duty of care and in making such decisions you should take into account the limitations of the scope of our work and other factors, commercial and otherwise, of which you should be aware of from the sources other than our work.

Survey Participants

Scope of work

Ernst & Young (EY) has been engaged by Live Performance Australia (LPA) to undertake the annual compilation of ticket attendances and revenue for the live performance industry for the calendar year 2018. The live performance industry encompasses performances, productions, previews and concerts that are performed in front of a live audience. The scope of our work included:

• Collating and consolidating the collection of the ticket sales and revenue data (national survey data) for the live performance industry in Australia from participating ticketing companies, venues, entertainment companies, event organisers and the Australia Council for the Arts on behalf of the Australian Major Performing Arts Companies (AMPAG).
• Compiling the 2018 national data on an overall basis, by state and by event category.
• Conducting an analysis of the 2018 national data on an overall basis (and in comparison to previous years), by state and by event category.

This study follows the previous annual ticketing studies published by LPA in partnership with EY since the 2006 Report.

Approach

For this Report, EY compiled data from ticketing companies, self-ticketing venues, event promoters and the Australia Council for the Arts (collectively referred to in this study as the “Survey Participants”). The ticketing companies, self-ticketing venues and event promoters that provided data as part of this study are provided in Appendix A of this Report.

Ticketing data was assigned by the Survey Participants to event categories based on the guidelines established between LPA and these organisations. Appendix B of this Report presents a description of these event categories. Further, as part of these guidelines, the ticketing companies and venues were requested to exclude from their data all events produced or presented by the AMPAG companies. This was to avoid double counting of revenue and attendance data.

Survey Participants provided data to EY directly. Confidentiality Deeds were signed between data providers and EY, where requested. As such, and consistent with our agreed approach, EY did not reveal, insofar as possible, disaggregated raw survey data or event specific revenue or ticketing data to LPA.

While our scope of works did not include a detailed review of all data to determine the appropriateness of the events and event category allocations, where obvious anomalies were identified, appropriate amendments were made.

Examples of such anomalies included:

• Events which were wrongly categorised were reallocated. For example, music festivals were reallocated to Festivals (Contemporary Music).
• Sporting events (except for the special events presented as part of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games), talk shows, fashion festivals, food festivals (that do not include music line ups), workshops, cinema screenings, award nights, graduation ceremonies and art exhibitions were identified in some data sets. These were excluded as they are not considered part of the live performance industry.
• Amateur events such as school performances, dance academy concerts and other community group performances were excluded as the scope of this Report does not include amateur performances.

*These categories were introduced in 2009
^This category was renamed in 2011, having been named “Non-Classical Music” in prior years

Limitations

As with previous studies, data on ticket revenue and attendances for the live performance industry were limited to those provided by the Survey Participants. While national in reach, the coverage of this Report excludes events in some regional venues as well as contract-fee performances by AMPAG companies. Small to medium companies and independent theatre are also under-represented as many of these companies either self-ticket or use ticketing service providers and venues not currently involved in the Report. LPA and EY are working towards improving the Report’s inclusion of these events by increasing the supplementary dataset.

• It is important to note that festivals are under-reported in this Report as some festivals maintain their own ticketing systems and many of these do not contribute data into this Report. The inclusion of ticketing data from Oztix, Bluesfest, MONA FOMA and Dark Mofo in recent years addresses some under reporting in the festival categories. However, revenue and attendance are likely to be undervalued in the category because a number of boutique festival events are self-ticketed and are not presently contributing data to the Report. For numerous festivals, the Report only documents paid tickets and does not include the substantial unpaid and/or unticketed components.
• The Contemporary Music category is subject to similar limitations, as pub and club venues that self-ticket, or use ticketing companies who are not part of the Report are not included in the results. However, data from Oztix and Moshtix (The Ticket Group) helps to decrease the level of under-reporting, as these ticketing agencies include smaller performances at certain bars and hotels. Still, this Report provides a conservative estimate of the total ticket revenue and attendances sourced from live performance events in Australia.

As part of our analysis, the 2018 data was compared against historical data sourced directly from Live Performance Australia’s Live Performance Industry in Australia 2006 - 2017 Reports. EY acknowledges that we did not revisit the data collection and allocation methodology used in 2006 and 2007 as the historical data used to prepare the reports in these years was not provided in a disaggregated format. As such, EY was unable to query the accuracy of the allocation of events in these years.

Therefore, caution should be applied when comparing data from 2008 to 2018 periods with that of data from previous years. Inconsistencies may exist in the data collection methodology between the surveys performed in these ten years, and for previous surveys (where more detailed event specific information was not requested).

Changes in the 2018 Ticketing Report compared to prior years

We have made the following changes to the Report in 2018 when compared to prior years:

• In 2016, Festivals (Single-Category) was renamed as Festivals (Contemporary Music) for better clarity. We have retained this naming convention in 2018.
• As noted in the 2017 Report, Perth Theatre Trust has fully transitioned to self-ticketing and is now a regular data provider.
• New providers have been added to the report, including the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre, Theatre North, Tamworth Regional Council, Illawarra Centre and Secret Sounds.