Eight Australian acts · 231 dated Melbourne shows · 43 losses · Chartmetric venue journeys
A career in this country is a slow walk up a ladder of rooms, and the data shows both halves of the story: how long the walk takes, and how many rungs have been pulled out while everyone was walking.
Pick an act and watch the walk: years of shows under the 500 line before anything above it, then the jump to the Forum at 2,000. The jump only ever happens once the sub-500 rooms have done their work.
Each bar is a year, each block a venue or festival that closed. Two clusters: 2012 to 2015, when the national touring festivals collapsed together, and 2023 to 2024, when the boutique festivals and the mid rooms followed. When festivals die, the room ladder does more of the work of building acts, with fewer rooms to do it.
The Melbourne rooms these eight acts actually climbed, tallest to smallest. Struck names are gone. Look at the middle: between 170 Russell at 1,050 and the Forum at 2,000 the only theatre was the Palace, and it is struck out. The step everyone has to take is the one with the fewest places to take it.