Fire Fight Australia concert wins ratings, raises $9.5 million…and counting

Royalty from the worlds of rock, pop, hip-hop and Hollywood hit western Sydney on Sunday (Feb. 16) for the historic Fire Fight Australia concert, which could ultimately snare upwards of $10 million for good causes.

TEG Dainty and TEG Live, producers of the day-long all-star show, announced more than that $9.5 million was already raised for bushfire relief, with more donations expected to pour in when the package is aired abroad in the days ahead.

The sold-out spectacular at ANZ Stadium featured performances from Queen and Adam Lambert, 5 Seconds of Summer, Olivia Newton-John, John Farnham, Amy Shark, k.d. lang, Alice Cooper and many more.

The TV broadcast nabbed more than a million sets of eyeballs, helping Seven win in the audience shares on the day. The feed grabbed more than one million metro viewers for the commercial network.

Prime-time was big-time for the broadcast, snagging 953,000 metro viewers, while the afternoon portion earned 828,000 and the day coverage managed 543,000.

Watch 'We Are the Champions' from Queen + @AdamLambert's Live Aid Set at Fire Fight Australia! ? @FireFightAU ?
Please donate over at: https://t.co/x5PP4Zu76H#FireFightAustralia #QAL2020 https://t.co/ei5tkFV87z

— Queen (@QueenWillRock) February 16, 2020

Across the country, Mumbrella reports, the late coverage scored 1.560 million viewers, with prime=time drawing 1.510 million. Average viewership across the 9.50-hour music fest was 1.11 million national viewers nationally, and 712,000 metro.

“The television numbers were excellent,” Geoff Jones, CEO of TEG, tells TIO. “It’s great for our industry to have that many people watching artists, Australian and international. There were big numbers across the day.”

Paul Dainty, President and CEO of TEG Dainty, said he and his team are “overjoyed” at the response from the 75,000 fans in the house and those watching on across Network Seven and Foxtel’s telecasts.

“From the first conversation with Queen’s manager, Jim Beach, the band’s immediate response to support this amazing event was what set everything in motion,” he says.

“International broadcasts will run until mid-May, the legendary concert promoter adds, and “we intend to keep accepting donations until then, it will take some time to provide final totals. We have engaged Deloitte to review our accounting and provide a post event report detailing revenues, expenses and confirmation of the final donations to the various charities.”

? How you can donate to #FireFightAustralia ?
https://t.co/Kyrp2i46m5 pic.twitter.com/HjZ8C4kdxy

— Fire Fight Australia (@FireFightAU) February 16, 2020

TEG’s Jones paid tribute to the 23 artists and bands, and the 1,500 suppliers and volunteers that “helped ensure we were able to achieve this amazing result by providing services at cost or free of charge.”

He adds, “fans and everybody involved can rest assured that we will provide a full breakdown of the final amounts raised as soon as possible*.

Me and dad @alicecooper #FireFightAustralia ? pic.twitter.com/zlastPbTjr

— Amy Shark (@amyshark) February 16, 2020

All donations made through firefightaustralia.com will go directly to the Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal’s FIRE FIGHT FUND to ensure local community groups can access support throughout their recovery journey, when the time is right for them.

All donations collected at ANZ Stadium during the event will go to the RSPCA Bushfire Appeal.

For more information visit https://www.frrr.org.au.

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