Calls to triple music spend to stop musos deserting Adelaide stages
New data this week showed a Nepalese restaurant is the city’s second busiest live music venue. Today, the state’s music industry peak body releases its $12 million pitch to get more venues online and to slow the loss of SA musos to interstate.
MusicSA is calling on the next state government to invest $12 million over three years, which CEO Christine Schloithe says would help keep musicians living and working in the state.
“We had this beautiful wave of people returning home or choosing to live in South Australia during Covid,” she said.
“After Covid, and it’s just too tough now, they’re having to go back to Melbourne and Sydney where they feel like they can earn an income.”
A key feature of the policy pitch is a $1.25 annual grant program that would speed up access to funding for artists, venues and festivals – with hopes it would boost the number of live music venues.
Schloithe said a new report released this week showing Khukuri Nepalese Restaurant on Currie Street was the second busiest live music venue in the city after the festival centre was “surprising”.
“That reflected to me the changes that we have seen in venues over the last couple of years as things have gotten really tough,” she said.
And she said artists needed far more support.
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“Things move really fast in the music industry. If an artist is getting some interest and wants an opportunity to be able to progress that interest, to accept a showcase invitation interstate or overseas, they need the opportunity to apply for some quick response funding now,” Schloithe said.
“The money that’s going out to artists and businesses, those two or three times a year just isn’t enough.”
Currently, the state government’s Music Development Office offer project grants of up to $15,000 for artists or music businesses with two rounds of grant applications confirmed for 2026. It also runs a 12-month Robert Stigwood Fellowship offering $25,000 in support to chosen recipients in the competitive program.
Mondo Psycho frontwoman Carla Lippis told CityMag agrees she’s seeing another “major brain drain” on the cards in the local music scene and wants to see funding support the creation and protection of musicians’ intellectual property.
“I think the local music scene is always going to benefit from more funding if that funding can be accessed by independent musicians,” Lippis said.
“We can put Adelaide on the map by putting fresh new IP from lots of different genres, that’s how scenes are created.
“We can see people leaving again, and we have to ask ourselves why.”
To address larger challenges in the sector and upskill artists’ music business acumen, MusicSA has proposed a new annual industry conference, which would cost part of the $700,000 allocated to industry sector development in the funding pitch.
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Schloithe said the conference would be tailored specifically to SA and fill a gap that other conferences, like the national Indie-Con – also held in Adelaide – don’t address.
Indie-Con is a three-day festival that brings together national and international guests, run by the Independent Record Labels Association, while a state-based conference would “address the nuances that we need to be dealing with”, Schloithe says.
MusicSA’s proposal would “triple” the current spend that was put up by the state government in 2022.
“Coming out of the last election, the government put a $10 million See It Live package on the table so we don’t think $12 million is that much of a stretch on top of that,” Schloithe said.
Schloithe said “the devil is in the detail” of their calls, which is “dramatically different” to what the government has put on the table in the past.
Their policy pitch would also allocate an annual $500,000 for live music in the regions, $250,000 for First Nations industry development and $150,000 for music career pathways for young people.
Through the See it Live package – which was extended in 2024 – 20 CBD venues, including the Exeter Hotel, Lion Arts Factory and Ancient World, shared in $850,000 of grants, after a series of high-profile nightclub closures in the city’s West End.
Port Adelaide Nightclub Confession was named as one of the venues to receive funding as part of the See it LIVE program but just days after receiving the funding told followers on social media that it would be closing as a public nightclub.
Arts Minister Andrea Michaels said “the government is currently reviewing its music strategy to achieve the best result for musicians and venues” and that MusicSA’s funding “has more than doubled under the Malinauskas government”.
“Our new State Cultural Policy, A Place to Create, has dedicated an additional $1.6 million to music over the next two years. This is on top of the $1.7 million the Music Development Office currently receives to support the music industry, including Music SA,” she said.
“There is also additional funding and grants available to artists to apply for.
“Grant funding to artists has more than doubled under our government and we have invested millions in programs designed to support live music. We provided funding for venue upgrades as well as to pay artists for live music performances, which in addition to helping bring crowds into those venues also crated employment for musicians.
“We also created a Premier’s Live Music Council to advice the government on how we can continue to support the live music industry and we stepped in and saved the Cranker for future generations of South Australians.”
