Australians Bought Fewer Live Tickets in 2025, but Prices Hit a Record
Australians bought fewer tickets to live shows in 2025, and the average price paid for a seat reached a record high. The figures come from Live Performance Australia, the industry body that counts ticket sales across the country, in its annual attendance and revenue report released on 20 October 2026.
The report covers concerts, theatre, comedy, dance and other live performance. Across all of it, ticket revenue came to about A$3.4 billion (Australian dollars), slightly down on the year before. Ticketed attendance fell 2.4% to 30.7 million. The 2024 report had counted 31.4 million tickets, so the drop is small, but it is the second year in the record books where the total has moved the wrong way for the industry.
Concerts were the largest slice. Fans bought more than 13.7 million concert tickets, down 2.4%, and concert revenue reached A$1.8 billion. That is 0.9% below the all-time record set in 2024.
Contemporary music, meaning pop, rock, hip-hop and similar live acts, took 53.5% of live revenue and 44.8% of attendance. The average ticket for a contemporary concert rose 2.0% to A$138.15.
Festivals were one of the bright spots. Contemporary music festivals sold 2.1 million tickets and brought in just under A$400 million, up 20.7% on 2024.
The average ticket price across the whole industry rose 14.1% to A$206.17. That is the highest figure the report has recorded. Even so, LPA says it only partly kept pace with costs, given headline inflation of 3.8%. Headline inflation is the general rise in prices across the economy, measured each quarter.
Musical theatre had the hardest year. Both its revenue and its attendance fell by more than 16%, and revenue came to A$442.3 million.
LPA chief executive Eric Lassen said Australians face more intense cost-of-living pressure and are being more selective about which tickets they buy. That, he said, is behind the softer demand in 2025. He also pointed to rising production and touring costs, which are squeezing the margins producers and presenters earn and making shows riskier to fund, particularly in theatre. Lassen took over as chief executive from Evelyn Richardson in January 2025.
The theatre pressure has already shown up on stage. In July 2026, ABC News reported that the live entertainment sector was asking the government for a lifeline after productions including Beetlejuice and Waitress were cancelled. In September, Business Sydney and LPA jointly called for a Live Performance Tax Incentive Program to stop Sydney theatres going dark, meaning sitting empty with no show running.
For fans, the numbers mean higher prices for fewer seats filled, and a closer look at which shows are worth the money. For everyone else in the business, they mean lighting technicians, wardrobe staff, musicians and stage crew working fewer nights. A theatre that goes dark is not just a loss on a balance sheet. It is a cast and crew who have to find the next job.
