Census Working Overtime: Data Collected On Australian Country Music

Australia is well and truly part of country music’s global boom. 

Spotify consistently identifies it as the world’s third-largest and fastest-growing country music market behind the USA and Canada, and its major festivals continue to thrive.

The Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) has received funding from Create NSW and the Federal Government’s Creative Australia to conduct a nationwide study to update on the first ground-breaking Country Music Census in 2019.

It is set for release in winter.

CMAA President Dobe Newton, who is spearheading the research with a team of undergraduates from JMC Academy in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, opens up on what the new data is focussed on.

One, he says, is “to gauge the extent of the genre’s recovery from the impact of the pandemic years when 70+ per cent of income, spending and job creation was lost across the contemporary music sector.”

He adds, “We will also focus on the social, cultural and economic value of country music as a tourism driver. Particularly as the majority of the major festival events occur in regional cities and rural communities.”

The 2019 study, also led by Newton, showed that the Australian country music sector was larger than thought, conservatively estimated to be 8 to 10 per cent of the wider music industry.

Key takeaways from the 2019 figures were:

• The sector generated approx. $570 million in box office, patron spending and royalties for copyright owners.

• Country music festivals attracted 200,000+ patrons.

• 14 per cent of registered APRA songwriters identified as ‘country’.

• 14% of all new release music on commercial radio was country.

• The country music sector created 1,600+ full-time equivalent jobs.

• 80 per cent of country artists and 90 per cent of fans felt totally ‘safe’ at country gigs. This was significantly more than the percentage recorded for other genre events.

This year’s census will have an essential take on the changing consumption behaviour of its fans.

Newton explains, “Country music fans have always been consumers of product via a direct artist-to-fan retail transaction. That is the purchase at gigs of recorded product and/or the download of recorded material via artist websites.

“Country music fans were traditionally seen as lagging behind the consumers of other genres in terms of their streaming activity.

“However, our 2019 research showed that country music fans were increasingly embracing streaming platform subscriptions to access their music.

“Recent statistics from North America – the world’s dominant country music market – suggests that, in recent years, country fans have dramatically increased their streaming consumption. 

“We anticipate that those findings will be replicated in our marketplace when we analyse the feedback from our fan/patron survey.”

Tourism

Another important aspect is the interaction between country music festivals and tourism dollars.

The festivals are in growth mode. Last week’s CMC Rocks 2025 drew another capacity of 23,000 patrons after selling out in six hours last September and injected $14 million into the state economy.

CMC, winner of the festival category in the inaugural Countrytown Awards in Brisbane, also displayed new additions, such as Nifty’s Sports Bar and the Big Time Bootscooter Line Dancing Competition, with expanded retail stores and competitions.

A classic case of music tourism is the Deni Ute Muster, whose 18,000-strong crowd included fans from New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the USA. Over 60% of the NSW event’s attendees crossed the border from Victoria.

Queensland’s free country music beach-meets-bush Groundwater gets 68 per cent of its crowd from outside the region, with its GM Mark Duckworth attributing its rapid success to how it attracts both “the 35-55 folk/blues festival crowds … and a new interest with younger crowds”.

The Tamworth Country Music Festival and Gympie Music Muster both report attracting younger audiences.

Savannah In The Round near Cairns, which generates $9.4 million for the local economy, expanded as Savannah Sounds to the Port Douglas Carnivale.

Also successful is Ridin’ Hearts, which returns for the third time to Sydney and Melbourne in spring.

Newton comments on why these events thrive: “Unlike a number of other festivals, they can rightly be categorised as ‘destination events’.

“According to internal surveys that many of the events conduct, audiences are motivated to attend to meet up with family, ‘like-minded’ people and friends developed over a period of time and to discover new and emerging talent.  

“The exception is probably CMC Rocks, which – uniquely across the genre, presents a significant number of international headliners. [The festival presents] an opportunity for fans to see them in the one place at the one time.”

The 2025 Census will also report on the impact of tours by superstar acts such as Luke Combs, Zach Bryan, Lainey Wilson, and Morgan Wallen and the emergence of country music super fans.

Seeking Artist/Fan Input

The Country Music Census 2025 is seeking input from artists and fans through separate online surveys. See here for more information.

They can be completed anonymously, or those providing an email contact can win a $750 Coles gift card or double passes to the 2026 Golden Guitar Awards. All information provided will be aggregated in the report. No individual will be identified.