Tasmania leads the nation with live music pilot
APRA AMCOS welcomes Australian-first venue incentive proposal
Calls on the Australian Government to back the trial and build on it with a national live music incentive scheme
APRA AMCOS has welcomed the Tasmanian Government’s proposal for a Live Music Excise Rebate Pilot - an Australian first that would give pubs, hotels and clubs a rebate worth 50% of their verified expenditure on live music - and has called on the Australian Government to back the trial and build on it with a national live music incentive scheme.
Announced today by Acting Premier Bridget Archer, the pilot would provide participating Tasmanian venues with a direct financial incentive to program live music, creating more paid opportunities for local artists and encouraging audiences back into local venues.
APRA AMCOS CEO, Dean Ormston, said the announcement was a landmark moment for Australian live music policy: “This is a national first and Tasmania should be applauded for it. For the first time, a government in Australia has put a concrete live music rebate incentive on the table, one that rewards venues for investing in artists.
“Venues have told us exactly what they need. When we surveyed almost 3,000 live music venues, nightclubs and promoters across the country, more than 70% said financial pressure was the reason they had stopped programming live music, and over 70% identified a tax rebate or incentive as the single most important measure that would get live music back on their stages. Tasmania has listened.”
The proposal aligns directly with the recommendations of the Federal Parliament’s live music inquiry report, Am I Ever Gonna See You Live Again?, which made a live music tax offset its first recommendation and called on the Australian Government to partner with state and territory governments to fund a trial of a rebate scheme.
It also builds on the momentum of the NSW Government’s Art of Tax Reform Summit, held at the Sydney Opera House in September 2025 in partnership with Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, which brought governments and the creative industries together around tax-based investment in Australian culture.
“The Federal inquiry recommended the Commonwealth partner with a state to trial precisely this kind of scheme. Tasmania has just raised its hand. With NSW and other states already leading the national conversation through last year’s tax reform summit, the Australian Government now has willing partners, a ready-made pilot and a sector that has done the policy work. It should say yes,” adds Ormston.
Independent economic modelling commissioned by APRA AMCOS from Oxford Economics shows a national live music incentive would deliver up to $920 million in additional economic activity each year, support up to 10,800 jobs, generate more than 320,000 additional gigs annually and boost musician incomes by up to $294 million.
“The economics of grassroots live music are precarious,” adds Ormston. Costs are rising, venues are under pressure and the circuit that develops Australian artists needs urgent support to build sustainability. A well-designed incentive changes that equation: the more a venue invests in live music, the more support it receives. That is how you rejuvenate live music, build sustainable venue businesses and create sustainable careers for artists.
“The benefits flow well beyond the stage. A thriving live music scene puts more people through the door of every pub, hotel and club, fills restaurants and accommodation, drives visitation to towns and regions, and creates work for sound technicians, hospitality staff and the whole night-time economy. Live music is one of the most efficient economic multipliers a community can have: every dollar spent on a gig ripples through the businesses around it.”
A national live music incentive was one of the central proposals in APRA AMCOS’s submission to the Australian Government’s national cultural policy consultation, Made Here. Heard Everywhere., which set out a roadmap for the next five years of Australian music.
“Tasmania is leading the way, and we have put a national scheme squarely on the Australian Government’s agenda through our cultural policy submission. The evidence is in, a state is ready to go, and the sector is united. We look forward to working with the Tasmanian and Australian governments to make this pilot into a long-term reality and to build it into a national scheme so that every venue, every artist and every community benefits,” Ormston concludes.
