Live music industry still juggling insurance hikes

Volta venue owner Zac Hill said the industry has made improvements but issues surrounding insurance are still persisiting.

"The affordability of insurance has skyrocketed and mine has gone up about 300 per cent," Mr Hill said.

He said a late night, live music venue that has space for dancing is perceived to have more risk than a sit down restaurant.

Volta is not alone in Ballarat, in April 2022 The Eastern on Humffray Street was forced to close for six weeks while they found a new insurance provider.

At the time The Eastern's Matt Stone said international incidents like fires and collapsing balconies had affected insurance costs on a worldwide level.

This was on top of two years of cancelled events because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A limited number of providers creating a decrease in competition has also hiked prices.

Music Victoria chief executive Simone Schinkel said insurance price rises were a global issue also affecting caravan parks, rides and events in general.

"There is no silver bullet quick fix," she said.

Ms Schinkel said industry bodies including the Australian Live Music Business Industry Council are looking at ways to alleviate the issue in the long term.

Flow on effects like each artist and musician needing to have their own public liability insurance is making it difficult to put on gigs.

Mr Hill said venues like his were important for local musicians to have the opportunity to perform and perfect their crafts.

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"It is about giving people, especially local people an opportunity, either to get on the stage and work on their craft or give them a platform where they're literally cutting their teeth on the same stage as some national artists," he said.

Ms Schinkel said no one in the industry is alone right now.

"It's just worth reminding people that, and if they need someone to call or listen to their woes, that is Music Vic," she said.

Music Victoria have completed a music census for the state to see where the industry is sitting after a high point in 2019 and years of on again off again events.

Ms Schinkel said the report shows music in the regions have seen strong growth which she hopes can continue.

"The regions shouldn't be left behind, the population is there so the services and opportunities should also be there," she said.

Currently there are a number of funding programs that are helping the industry stay afloat including flood recovery and tourism boosters.

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"We have a three-year backlog of events and significant government investment bolstering us up. "We need to continue to maintain these sorts of data sets so that we can see things before they get too far out of control."

Mr Hill said he was pleased to see small progress in the industry and didn't expect anything to happen overnight.

"We have only been back to full capacity trading for 12 months and this thing went on for ... years. It's gonna take some time," he said.

"I would say that everyone in the industry is working very positively in order to try and recreate a better live music scene than maybe we had previously.

"At the end of the day it's not like we're doing brain surgery, we're doing gigs and live music and it's a pretty good job."

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