Australia’s big three promoters launch ‘Vaxstage Pass’ competition

Australia’s leading promoters are dangling free tickets to the biggest international shows heading to these shores. There’s just one catch – you’ll need to be fully-vaccinated.

Frontier Touring, Live Nation and TEG are behind the Vaxstage Pass, a national incentive that encourages music fans to get the jab, and get into the show.

Five lucky winners will score a plus-one to each of the promoters’ arena and stadium tours in 2022, which includes treks by Dua Lipa, KISS, Lorde, The Kid LAROI, and many others.

“By getting vaccinated,” reads a post on Instagram, “you’re playing a valuable part in getting live entertainment back on the road and making our community safer.”

Vaxstage Pass is an offshoot of Vax the Nation, the national initiative launched earlier this month by the newly-formed LIVE Alliance, which includes reps from ARIA, APRA AMCOS, Assn. of Artist Managers (AAM), Australian Live Music Business Council (ALMBC), and the big three promoters.

The campaign, which dropped on social media late last week, but wasn’t trumpeted to media, is proof to the meme that vaccinations really are the gateway drug to live music.

If there’s one thing promoters agree on, it’s the notion that vaccinations are the best way out of this mess.

With vaccine passports wiped off the table last week in England, and Australia well off the pace to even plot how such a strategy would work, promoters and artists everywhere are getting inventive.

Recently, Kevin Parker announced that he and his Tame Impala bandmates would only accept full-vaxxed fans, or those with recent proof of a negative COVID test, to attend their north American shows.

The message isn’t always filtering through in the U.S., where the country music scene is particularly problematic. When Garth Brooks played Kansas City last month, the health department offered the 70,000 gig goers a free chance to get immunized.

Just 35 people rolled up a sleeve.

On Sunday (Oct. 19), Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews presented the state’s roadmap out of lockdown restrictions.

Lockdowns would remain in place across Melbourne until late October, though restrictions would ease up once once 80 per cent of the eligible population has been double-jabbed.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.