Fuel Costs and Financial Pressure Cutting Australian Event Attendance, Study Shows

More than half of Australian event-goers are prioritising rent, mortgages, and bills over buying tickets, according to new research from culture-led marketing agency Bolster.

The inaugural Pulse: A Live Events Report - the first in a planned quarterly series - surveyed event-goers across capital cities and regional hubs, finding that ground-level economic pressure is what's driving behavioural change at the box office.

The fuel crisis is a significant factor. Only 18% of respondents said their event-going habits are unchanged by transport costs, with 31% attending fewer events and 29% switching to public transport to offset the expense.

The report also challenges the industry's assumption that late buyers are simply uncommitted. Of the 22% of respondents actively delaying ticket purchases, 54% are doing so to cover immediate household bills first.

Financial pressure is steepest among 35-44 year-olds, with 60.2% prioritising household costs over tickets and 56% reducing how often they attend. Younger audiences (18-34 year-olds) are held back primarily by job insecurity.

The report segments the current market into four personas: Cautious Cutters (49.8%), who still attend but treat every ticket as a trade-off; Business As Usuals (32.9%), largely older and mortgage-free, whose habits remain largely unchanged; Escapists (9.1%), younger renters who spend more on events during tough times; and Dropouts (8%), who have stopped attending altogether - a figure that rises to 16.6% in smaller capitals including Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, and Canberra.

The report closed with recommendations across the industry, including promoters aligning on-sales with payday cycles, venues offering mid-week incentives and transport partnerships, artists diversifying merch price points, and government exploring subsidised transport to entertainment precincts.

"The live events industry has always been defined by its resilience," said Bolster Group CEO James Clarke. “However, as we move through 2026, the gap and friction between wanting to go out and being able to afford it has never been more evident. We don't want to just track this shift; we want to provide the industry with timely, actionable insights to help navigate it and stay connected to crowds, no matter what the economy is doing.”

Media director and report lead Paige X. Cho added: “Data is just the toolkit - the good stuff is what the industry builds with it. There is still plenty of magic to be made in experiences, we just need to be a little smarter about how we find it.”

The complete Pulse: A Live Events Report is available here.