Launching our first Pulse report 🎟️✨
Introducing Bolster's first Pulse Report: How global chaos is shifting Australian live event attendance
Here at Bolster, we love using data to inform our work to make sure it’s efficient, relevant, and effective.
“The live events industry has always been defined by its resilience," says James Clarke, CEO of Bolster Group. "However, as we move through 2026, the gap and friction between wanting to go out and being able to afford it has never been more evident. We don't want to just track this shift; we want to provide the industry with timely, actionable insights to help navigate it and stay connected to crowds, no matter what the economy is doing.”
Introducing Pulse, a new quarterly report series from Bolster Group, designed to deliver timely, hyper-relevant consumer insights to back our work in a world that is changing so fast.
“This body of research is a quick, real-world snapshot to help our industry navigate 2026 and its many challenges,” adds Paige X. Cho, Media Director at Bolster and Report Lead. “Data is just the toolkit—the good stuff is what the industry builds with it. There is still plenty of magic to be made in experiences, we just need to be a little smarter about how we find it.”
”Some of these quarterly insights might not be revolutionary,” Clarke adds. “Sometimes they just reaffirm an idea or provide extra colour to a picture event teams are already seeing from their own marketing. Through this work, we hope to be a consistent sounding board and reference point for our clients and the broader industry throughout the year.”
For our inaugural edition, we wanted to understand how a relentless global news cycle is impacting how Australians engage with live events. From shifting geopolitical conflicts to lingering health anxieties, we looked closely at what is actually moving the needle on ticket sales.
We surveyed 350 Australian live event goers in April and May this year, asking them 10 questions about their attitudes and behaviours around their event attendance in relation to the wider world. We also cross tabulated their responses against their age, geographic location (metro vs. regional across every state) and their current living situation (living at home with their parents, renting, owning a home with a mortgage or owning a home outright) to compare whether these factors impacted their behaviours. (Hint: they did.)
Read it here:
The full report above, but a few findings stood out:
The Downstream Ripple Effect 📰 While global headlines dominate the news, audiences are less impacted by direct geopolitics and far more affected by the downstream economic realities, specifically petrol prices and the cost of living.
The 35–44 Squeeze 💸 Despite earning higher average salaries than younger demographics, the 35–44 age bracket is the most financially squeezed due to mortgages and childcare. Consequently, this audience is the most likely to prioritise gigs closer to home.
The Petrol Tax 🚗 Fuel prices are actively reshaping geography-based attendance. Only 18% of respondents stated that the cost of petrol has zero impact on how they travel to gigs.
The Transit Divide 🚉 Metro infrastructure dictates savings strategies. In major cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth), 30.6% of fans choose public transport specifically to save money. That drops to just 19.4% in smaller cities, a shift heavily influenced by a lack of late-night transit options.
The Escapism Split 🎫 While 8% of audiences have dropped out of attending live music entirely, a resilient 9% are actually attending more gigs, leaning into live music as a form of escapism or nihilistic hedonism.
We built this resource to give the live events sector timely and relevant insights with practical actionables to sell event tickets in 2026. We hope you find the insights valuable, and we encourage you to share the report across your networks.
If you’d like to dig deeper into the report — or set up a private session with your team — reach out to your Bolster client lead, or get in touch with us here.