The money side of making music. A free program for musicians across central and regional Victoria.
The median Australian artist earns $14,700 a year from their music, inside an industry that turns over $8.8 billion. Most artists are funding their own careers and hoping it adds up.
Nobody tells you what a release actually costs, what a support slot pays, whether that run of shows will lose you money, or which of the things you're paying for is doing anything at all. The numbers exist. They just get passed around quietly, and you only hear them if you already know someone.
We're applying for funding to run six evenings in Castlemaine in the second half of 2027, free, where people who know say the numbers out loud. A promoter going through a real door deal. A manager explaining what an advance actually means once you've paid it back. A programmer on what a festival fee looks like. That half of the night is open to whoever wants to come.
Twelve of you stay on afterwards and work out your own: what your last release cost and what it earned, what you'd need to sell to break even, what to charge, and where the next dollar should go. You leave with it on one page.
It isn't funded yet, and that's what this page is for. If it's something you'd want, tell us, because the people who put their hand up go into the application as the reason it should exist. Two minutes, and it helps more than you'd think :)