Growing Gigs Fund

Live music is a critical part of Queensland’s arts and cultural vibrancy and makes important economic and social contributions across the State.

The Growing Gigs Fund (the Fund) provides support to the industry to respond to shifts in audience demands and increased operating costs, while supporting the livelihoods of Queensland musicians.

Fund objectives

The Fund works to support live music venues (500-person capacity or less) to program original music by Queensland artists by subsidising costs associated with presenting. The benefits of this investment include:

• supporting venues in programming original contemporary live music
• increasing paid performance opportunities for Queensland music artists
• ensuring audiences can continue to connect with Queensland artists in live music venues.

View the Growing Gigs Fund guidelines for more information. 

Funding available

Queensland live music venues of up to 500-person capacity can apply for funding of

•  between $2,000 and $15,000 to offset costs associated with performance fees for emerging and established Queensland artists and musicians as part of a venue’s existing programming strategy

and

• up to an additional $15,000 to support new programming initiatives that grow new performance opportunities for Queensland artists and expand audiences for the venue (single performance or program of performances e.g. holding a mini festival programming a new music genre or introducing regular all-ages gigs).

A live music venue is defined as a business whose primary function is to program or host original live music, or that has a significant area within their venue that regularly and frequently hosts ticketed live performances of original music, e.g. a pub with a staged area and a regular program of touring bands would be eligible, but a pub that has weekly live music as part of its dinner service would not.

Original live music is defined as live performances of music that is composed and written by the artist(s) performing (or is exclusively written for the artist/band by someone else). The artist or band may include covers in their live performance, i.e. songs written or previously performed or recorded by other artists, but these should make up no more than half of the songs or pieces performed.

You must provide evidence of matched funding (1:1), cash and/or in-kind.

Applications must be submitted by the Fund closing date:

Funding round	Open	Close	Notification	Activity Start Date
Round 2	28 March 2025	2pm 6 May 2025	Late June 2025	From 1 August 2025