If people want live music to continue, they need to buy tickets to see musicians play.
The message from the director of one of Australia's longest running music festivals couldn't be more blunt.
Heidi Pritchard, the managing director of the National Folk Festival, was speaking just hours before the gates to the beloved Easter event opened on Thursday night, and said the vibe was building.
In true Canberra fashion, ticket sales had surged at the last minute, while the usual cohort of dedicated "folkies", the ones who turned up year after year, were already pitching their tents.
"We would have liked to have sold more tickets - it's a massive site, and very spread out," she said, of the vast Epic showgrounds on the northern edge of the city. But this, in a way, was part of the appeal.
"We sell between 38,000 and 50,000 tickets each year, but there are eight stages and five bars. There isn't the crush - you can find a green space, like on the grass and read a book."
But she said the reality was that purchasing habits had changed irrevocably, and people had clear choices to make when it came to seeing live music.
"People might think, 'Taylor Swift or Pink aren't going to be here for another four or six years, and Splendour is on every year - I'll go to Pink this year'," she said.
But unlike last year, which saw big names like Billy Bragg and The Waifs come to the Folk Festival, this year's lineup had more local acts.
"We've put money back into the economy ... we've made a conscious decision to prioritise Australian performers," Ms Pritchard said.
"We really try to support our industry. If people won't pay artists, we can't keep being artists."
Meanwhile, the festival is kicking off earlier than usual (thanks to an early Easter) at the tail-end of what has been a record-breaking season of free events to celebrate autumn in Canberra.
More people than ever had packed around the lake to watch hot air balloons go up, waft around the Enlighten Festival and watch the fireworks at Skyfire.
Enlighten attendance was up 27 per cent, and Symphony in the Park, which featured rock legends the Hoodoo Gurus had thousands more than anticipated, leading to unexpected parking and transport problems.
Even recent paid events - Matchbox 20 and this week's Socceroos match, both at the Bruce Stadium - had sellout crowds, while reasonably priced tickets to the large Canberra Comedy Festival lineup, sold in record numbers.
ACT Arts Minister Tara Cheyne said a particularly packed calendar of events this year had meant people having to make choices about what to attend.
"I am very concerned about the festival scene across Australia and the impact it has had, and is having, on our artists, their incomes, and their careers," she said.
The live music sector had been severely impacted by COVID, and the worst wasn't over yet. While the pandemic and its immediate aftermath had brought concessions and flexibility throughout the travel and hospitality sector, these had largely ceased.
This made decisions to cancel large-scale events like Splendour In The Grass almost inevitable when ticket sales were sluggish, even after just days of tickets being on sale.
"It has had and continues to have an impact on all artists and venues, who are often operating on razor-thin margins, and require a volume of ticket sales to break even, let alone make a profit," Ms Cheyne said.
"For multi-day or touring festivals, there is also a large outlay early to procure and arrange the necessary logistics, workforce, infrastructure, and approvals, so a degree of certainty early about the likely income is necessary.
"Strong ticket sales early are what underpins a festival's viability. While a week may seem like a short time after tickets go on sale for a festival to cancel, in February 2020, all 50,000 of the available Splendour in the Grass tickets sold out within an hour."
Unsurprisingly, she said, the prospect of a festival cancelling shortly after announcing the lineup was putting people off buying tickets at all.
In the wake of the cancellation, the federal government has launched a rescue mission to salvage Australia's live music scene.
The House of Representatives announced Thursday an inquiry into the challenges facing the sector, including venue closures and the cancellation of festivals.
Labor MP and committee chair Brian Mitchell said the hearings would look into a full range of hindrances facing the sector.
"The industry sits on the cusp of transformation and its important opportunities are harnessed while the traditional community nature of experiencing a live event is retained," he said.
The industry is for now caught in a vicious cycle, one Ms Pritchard said would never affect the Folk Festival as long as she was at the helm.
"We've been going for 56 years, and there is going to be a 57th festival," she said. "It's not going anywhere on my watch. We're one of the oldest enduring festivals - not just for folk music, but music in general."
