WA country music artist Adele Oliver has only ever expected to break even to cover her costs when touring.<\/p>\n
But the last gig of her recent tour \u2014 which covered a total of 1,800 kilometres over eight dates \u2014 cost her money due to the escalating price of fuel.<\/p>\n
“Now I would not be able to make an income being on the road,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s probably never been a great career choice, but now more than ever.”<\/p>\n
The Broome-based singer songwriter estimates half the income from her latest gig went to fuel alone. (Supplied: Adele Oliver<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She said there was a strong feeling of uncertainty among touring artists, and she was now looking for other work to supplement her income.<\/p>\n She’s not alone.<\/p>\n Esperance booking company owner Kyron Smithson said fuel costs meant locals could expect fewer visits from touring artists and more gigs by local artists.<\/p>\n “It’s already a stressful life, so the more pressure you put on that \u2026 well there’s just going to be less people moving around.”<\/p>\n He has been trying to book multiple shows for touring artists visiting Esperance and negotiating higher prices to cover costs.<\/p>\n Kyron Smithson, pictured performing, says if they are able, venues should help cover the costs of fuel for touring artists. (Supplied: Kyron Smithson<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Townsville-based street artist Garth Jankovic, who has spent 20 years painting murals in remote locations, is also adapting to make touring more viable.<\/p>\n For years, street artist Garth Jankovic has travelled to remote communities. (Supplied: Garth Jankovic<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He said there were real concerns about getting stuck on the road with fuel supplies uncertain.<\/p>\n “It’s also about safety, about getting places and that you might not necessarily be able to get back [from],” he said.<\/p>\n Mr Jankovic, who works in remote places such as Doomadgee, Tennant Creek and Palm Island, said he would need to be savvy as corporations start to pull back on arts funding.<\/p>\n “It’s a bit of a matter of survival \u2026 I’ve got to try and stay ahead, one step ahead,” he said.<\/p>\n Garth Jankovic says art is needed to uplift communities now more than ever. (Supplied: Garth Jankovic<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This would involve planning multiple jobs on long trips, travelling the outback in winter to reduce air-conditioning use, and prioritising local jobs.<\/p>\n “When the whole of society seems to sometimes take a little bit of a downturn, it’s actually the arts, I believe, we need more than anything else,” he said.<\/p>\n Garth Jankovic teaches art programs at remote schools. (Supplied: Garth Jankovic<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “But ironically it’s usually the first thing that gets cut.<\/p>\n “Now more than ever you need the arts to uplift people’s spirits.”<\/p>\n Ms Oliver said the challenges of regional touring would be felt across the entire industry.<\/p>\n “You can see the slower nature of ticket sales, you’ve started to see people rein in their spending,” she said.<\/p>\n Mr Smithson said audiences would miss out on seeing bigger acts and opportunities for emerging regional artists would be limited if touring became more restrictive.<\/p>\n Mr Jankovic’s mural in the Queensland town of Aurukun inspires hope. (Supplied: Garth Jankovic<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “If they drop off their touring, that definitely has an impact, people don’t get to see stuff outside of the norm,” he said.<\/p>\n “They don’t have those artists to see to inspire them, to drive them to create.”<\/p>\n More quick-turnaround touring grants would help, he said.<\/p>\n A Creative Australia spokesperson said the arts funding and advisory body was aware of the pressures rising costs were having on artists and arts organisations and was monitoring the situation.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.abc.net.au \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WA country music artist Adele Oliver has only ever expected to break even to cover her costs when touring. But the last gig of her recent tour \u2014 which covered a total of 1,800 kilometres over eight dates \u2014 cost her money due to the escalating price of fuel. “Now I would not be able […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2385521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[21894,342055,464966,22846,464963,453539,24104,22437,22149,464965,464964,315322,464962],"class_list":["post-2385520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-artists","tag-arts-funding","tag-arts-industry","tag-country-music","tag-diesel-prices","tag-fuel-prices","tag-local-music","tag-music-industry","tag-musicians","tag-petrol-prices","tag-regional-festivals","tag-ticket-prices","tag-touring-musicians"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Touring-artists-wind-back-shows-as-fuel-crisis-bites.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2385520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2385522,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385520\/revisions\/2385522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2385521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2385520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2385520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2385520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Remote venues look local<\/h2>\n
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Arts ‘needed more than ever’<\/h2>\n
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Arts on the brink<\/h2>\n
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