NZ feeling benefits of live comeback

Singer Gin Wigmore arrives on the red carpet at 2010 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards. Photo / Dean Purcell

CD sales are tumbling but the New Zealand music industry is still hitting some high notes.

"The record industry is not doing well but music is," says Ant Healey, the New Zealand head of the Australasian songwriters' collective body Apra.

"You only have to look at the turnout at last weeks's Vodafone music awards, with 7000 seats sold to the public," he says.

Reflecting global trends, revenue from live music and merchandising is growing.

Auckland's Vector Arena has boosted the number of big "heritage" acts - such as Metallica that played this week and charged up to $153.50 for a ticket.

Healey it says it is hard to know the value of international acts passing through.

"But at the airport yesterday there were a lot people in their Metallica T-shirts - coming to Auckland, needing accommodation for one or two nights, spending money at bars.

"These concerts are worth a lot of money to Auckland and New Zealand," he says.

Also increasingly significant is the additional revenue from incidental music - the background music in gymnasiums, offices and shops.

That attracts copyright revenue for songwriters but also for the performers and record companies, collected by Phonographic Performances New Zealand.

PPNZ is on a major push to increase revenue from incidental music.

"Music is much more a part of life than it was - even five or 10 years ago," Healey says. "Our challenge is to make sure that they pay for it."

The live music scene is doing well, he says.

"There has been the emergence of very success annual festivals and groups like Fat Freddys Drop, Shapeshifter and The Black Seeds - groups whose main source of revenue is playing live rather than by record sales.

"There has been a real renaissance in the New Zealand music scene."

CD sales are in decline but overall the industry is positive, he says.

"It doesn't mean we should be relaxed about illegal downloads."

New Zealand music veteran Gray Bartlett agrees the live industry has been booming.

But he says support for local music has been misrepresented because many genres such as country were not recognised.

Major labels are only interested in bands and that is apparent with media coverage of music, Bartlett says.

In the rest of the world, he says, there is a more mature approach to marketing product.