MAKE NOISE FOR OUR MUSOS
November is Ausmusic Month, so we’re putting out a call-to-action to get behind our incredible Territory music scene.
WORDS TIERNEY WHITE
BEING A MUSICIAN in the NT isn’t an easy slog. Despite the breadth of talent we have here in spades, the high costs paired with long distances to tour – even within the NT, and with the support of government grants! – make it unsustainable as a career. You won’t find many musos kicking around these here parts without also holding down a regular day job or picking up casual work to make ends meet.
Add to this the high cost of living for punters, and we have ourselves in a bit of a pickle. This Ausmusic Month, we want to let our readers know how they can get behind the NT’s music industry, with small, achievable actions that show the love.
It’s not just the local music industry that’s been impacted of late, with hangover effects still felt from the pandemic days. We’ve seen music festivals across the country fall by the wayside, either postponed or ceasing altogether, much to the disappointment of musicians and punters alike.
Locally, Wide Open Space Festival – a much-loved multi-day camping desert festival that occurs on the May Day long weekend – had to hit pause for 2025. In a statement put out in December last year, organisers flagged financial risk as the reason behind the heartbreaking decision.
“Huddle in everyone. We have some sad news to share with you. We have had to make the difficult decision to cancel Wide Open Space in 2025. The financial risk was too much for us to handle, and with only half of our budgeted grants coming through, we just couldn’t make it happen this year.”
Heavy metal music festival Blacken Open Air returned in September after a three-year hiatus, presented by The Black Wreath – a live music venue and record label in Mparntwe/Alice Springs. The Wreath’s founding father Pirate reckons music festivals in the NT offer unique experiences in special landscapes.
“Our region's so f-cking unique and stunning, and culture is like the tapestry that brings us all together, and music is the common denominator … Like, people just feel absolutely reborn and electrified, and call it a spiritual experience going to Blacken. There's been a lot of gratitude and people tell you it's ‘life changing’ – it's unique and important and vital – and we need those kinds of experiences in our life,” he says.
These events also increase visitation and spend to the NT, attracting both artists and punters locally, nationally, and internationally, to places they may not have otherwise traversed.
“The landscape is a selling point as well, that's what tourism is about, it's kind of the same thing, there's a lot of synergy there. The last Blacken in ‘22 brought one-and-a-half million dollars into the NT, so I think this year, it's probably doubled that, so it's not an insignificant amount,” Pirate says.
Mark Smith is Executive Director of MusicNT and says it’s a tricky time to navigate.
“Things haven’t quite bounced back since the COVID years, with venues themselves suffering. I think there is a cultural change happening in how people go out, and that affects the venues, which then affects the bands. I think there's a shift that is happening in the sector, but we just don't know where that shift is going to end up. And then, how do you navigate yourself as a band within that? I think we're in that strange transition time at the moment.”
The cost of touring also impacts musicians in the sense there are ears that won’t get to hear music, making breaking through to new audiences a huge challenge.
“I think over the last few years, it's definitely become more challenging for musicians to get out of the Territory … previously, our advice to bands was that you could do a quick run of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and come back, and it would actually work out, financially. But I think that's much harder,” Smith says.
“Within that, there's the general difficulty that artists are facing because there's just so much music out there. And so how do you cut through? Songs still do cut through, there's examples of that all the time, like Drifting Clouds or Andrew Gurruwiwi or Emily Wurramara … but that's not the norm. It's just a little bit harder for musicians to make a break from what they're doing.”
It’s important to acknowledge the incredible contribution of local, original music to our lifestyle and culture. The storytelling, the artistry, the atmosphere – what a sad world we would find ourselves in without music.
It’s at this point anyone reading this might be wondering what they can do. How can we support our wonderful music industry?
Buying tickets to gigs, following your favourite artists’ social media and streaming accounts, sharing your top tunes with your own social media following, and buying merch are some of the small actions we can take to show our support, regardless of how you may be impacted by the current cost of living crisis.
For musos reading this, consider signing up to MusicNT for a free membership, submit your original tunes for their Fresh MiNT e-newsletters, and subscribe to Grants NT – the Northern Territory Government’s grants mailing list – for potential grant support.
Off The Leash is also on standby to lend a hand! You can upload your gigs to our website at any time for free promo, and if you upload by our deadline, which is the 5th of the month prior to your event, there’s a huge chance we’ll be able to list it in about 10,500 magazines that are sent to over 200 locations across the NT. Use us, really.
Ausmusic T-Shirt Day also falls this month, so grab your local artist tees and wear them proudly. We’re also putting a call-out to our readers to share one of their top Territory tunes on Ausmusic T-Shirt Day, so share them on your Instagram stories, your BookFaces, play them at work, and blast them through your home speakers.
C’mon, friends. Let’s make some noise for our musos.
TUNE IN TO NT TUNES HERE!
Ausmusic T-Shirt Day & Share Territory Tunes
WHEN THU 27 NOV
INFO ausmusictshirtday.org.au
GIGS offtheleash.net.au
GRANTS grantsnt.nt.gov.au
INDUSTRY SUPPORT musicnt.com.au
MENTAL HEALTH & FINANCIAL SUPPORT supportact.org.au
Header: Black Open Air 2025. Photo: Oliver Eclipse Photography.
Inset: NT Finalists, The Songwriting Prize 2025. Photo: Liam Smid
