Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd’s monthly deep dive into live music’s biggest issues…
On August 13, around 150 people gathered at Melbourne Town Hall to ask every party contesting the Victorian state election to legislate for a permanent Victorian Music Trust.
The proposal is simple enough: 1% of ticket sales at stadiums, arenas and government-owned venues would be invested into grassroots rooms, low-cost events and all-ages shows, with those grassroots events exempt from paying in and eligible to draw money out.
Briggs was there, Cash Savage was there, label executives were there alongside venue operators. Victoria votes on November 28, with every party being asked to say whether it supports the idea.
Looking on from Britain, the most interesting thing, really, is that they have started with legislation. They have seen us.
In 2025, just 8.8% of arena and stadium tickets sold in the UK carried the Grassroots Levy. By 2026, that had risen to 25%. At the time of writing, 2027 looks on track to return 25% again, maybe less.
The Victorians have looked at what happens when an entire industry agrees that something is a good idea – but every company remains free to decide whether it actually does it – and concluded that perhaps the optional bit is where the trouble starts. That is a lesson they took from Britain, though it is not one that we meant to teach.
Australia has been wrestling with this argument for a while. In March 2025, the House Of Representatives Standing Committee On Communications And The Arts published a report recommending a small levy on tickets to large music events. Eighteen months later, neither government nor opposition has said whether it accepts that recommendation. So the sector has started building its own answer.
The Australian Music Venue Foundation has opened its doors and begun asking companies to opt in. Olivia Dean is on board, adding AU$1.10 to every ticket on her Australian tour – a British artist exporting a British idea to a country whose parliament has already recommended it. Meanwhile, back here, we are still debating whether those who voice support should actually be expected to act.
The same discussion is happening elsewhere because the same problem exists elsewhere. In Germany, plans for a national Live Music Fund, with a fixed €1 contribution on tickets above €35, were set in motion. When this initially stalled, Cologne’s club association introduced a Club Euro ticket pilot, which proved successful and is now being rolled out on a broader basis.
We have warm words, ongoing discussions and numbers which bear very little resemblance to the amount of support being expressed
Mark Davyd
None of this is particularly radical; France has had a statutory levy on ticket sales for years (currently 3.5%). British promoters put on shows there, British agents send artists there, British artists perform there and international ticketing companies sell tickets there. The levy is simply factored in and paid. Nobody has withdrawn from the French market in protest.
That is why parts of the UK debate are becoming harder to take seriously. A statutory levy is not some alien intervention. What Britain is really arguing about now is whether everyone should contribute or whether that should continue to depend on who chooses to.
MVT started the UK conversation in 2018. Since then, there has been a CMS Select Committee inquiry, a recommendation for a voluntary levy, a deadline for delivering it, government backing for the voluntary approach, industry agreement in principle, another target, another deadline and an impressive amount of constructive engagement.
More importantly, some promoters and operators have now gone beyond the talking stage and actually made it happen, proving that it is neither complicated nor commercially impossible. They deserve credit for that.
The strangest part is that nobody in Britain has really said no. A straight refusal would almost be useful, because at least everyone would know where they stood. Instead, we have warm words, ongoing discussions and numbers which bear very little resemblance to the amount of support being expressed.
Meanwhile, other countries are watching and drawing fairly obvious conclusions. Victoria has put legislation into its opening proposal rather than saving it for the point at which everybody gets bored of asking nicely. Cologne has decided to start collecting the money rather than wait indefinitely for somebody else to perfect the system. France decided years ago that if a policy depends on everybody contributing, there is a fairly straightforward way of making sure that everybody contributes.
Whatever happens in Victoria, someone will have to take responsibility for the answer. After years of the British Grassroots Levy campaign, that is the bit still missing here. Not support, not evidence, not examples of it working, and certainly not more conversations. Somebody, somewhere, has to own the outcome.
