“We must arm our leaders with key facts about the live performance industry”: Live Performance Australia eyes new five year plan

After a record-breaking report this year, Live Performance Australia (LPA) is looking at a new five-year strategic growth plan.

It comes as the peak music association underwent a major change last month with Andrew Kay AM stepping down after 15 years as president and Australian Chamber Orchestra managing director Richard Evans taking over.

Evans has tweeted: “The industry has never been stronger; last year alone saw enormous growth to a point where we performed to a total audience of 23 million – a $1.9 billion contribution to the national economy.

“As we enter rolling electoral cycles around Australia, the jobs, growth and tourism created by our industry must continue to be profiled within all levels of government.

“We must arm our leaders with key facts about the live performance industry to best equip them to talk about our economic and cultural impact with confidence.”

Evans added: “2019 is hard upon us, and early in the year we will be undertaking our regular national member consultations in order to distill our priorities into a new five-year strategic plan.”

In October, the LPA released its 2017 Ticket Attendance and Revenue Report which showed that Australia’s live performance industry generated $1.88 billion generated through ticket sales, as well as a 23% growth in attendance and 32% growth in revenue nationally between 2016 and 2017.

Contemporary music recorded its highest levels of ticket sales and revenue ($826 million) and attendance (8.5 million),