95bFM What can we do to support New Zealand’s local, grassroots music venues?
30 October, 2025
Interview by Joel Armstrong, adapted by Gabriel Timpson-Neill
Grassroots venues nationwide are struggling due to the cost-of-living crisis preventing people from going out, the consolidation in ticketing by larger ticketing companies, and the increasing rent needed to keep the venues alive.
Grassroots venues are typically defined as independently owned and operated, having a seating capacity of below 800 people, and hosting live music acts at least twice a week.
Dave Carter, an Associate Professor in the Massey University School of Music and Screen Arts, told 95bFM’s The Wire that the current struggles of these venues are not new.
“Venues are at the point end of a series of structural pressures, which were in place pre-pandemic but really brought to a sharp point during the pandemic lockdowns.”
Carter says that several problems, such as conflicts between local music venues and residents of newly-built apartment buildings, as in Christchurch, are also leading to a decline in the profitability of the local music sector.
He says this is an issue for music venues across the country, not just in Auckland.
“Broadly, we’re not talking about something that is specific to a particular city, but actually an across-the-board range of structural pressures that have just come to a head in the last seven years.”
Carter says that with local music venues struggling, so do local artists, who have fewer chances to perform live and expand their audience.
“These small venues… are vital for the development of emerging talent, it’s where new artists cut their teeth, it’s where they build an audience, it’s where a lot of the research and development happens in the live music [sector].”
Other countries, seeing similar issues faced by their grassroots venue sector, are implementing various methods to combat the decline, such as voluntary reinvestment schemes. In France, a 3.5% tax was implemented on the concert ticket sales to be redistributed to the local music sector.
Carter says that any policies considered in New Zealand should be focused on meeting community needs.
“Local councils have a really important role to play in supporting the viability and operation of grassroots music venues … any scheme designed to support grassroots venues as a key cultural infrastructure needs to be fit for purpose and respond to a local context.”
