No more ‘takin a dive’: musos should quit risky stunt

If bands would stop stage diving at concerts, insuring Australia’s live music events would be much easier, an inquiry has been told.

Long-time live music fan Jason Holmes sells insurance for entertainment events through his brokerage H2 Insurance Solutions, and said watching performers take risks onstage makes him cringe.

“It’s only fun until something goes wrong, and regularly something does go wrong, and then obviously that’s where we see claims,” he said.

“Insurers are saying: ‘hey, you can’t jump in a crowd, you can’t throw things into the crowd.’ The artists need to be made aware of this.”

The hearing in Canberra on Friday is the latest examining a crisis in Australia’s music industry, with festivals such as Splendour in the Grass cancelled and venues closing as costs soar.

One of those costs is insurance – in general, public liability insurance premiums have increased by 40 per cent since 2015, according to the Insurance Council of Australia.

The live music scene is predominantly insured through international companies, according to the council’s Alexandra Hordern – local insurers view the market as unprofitable and too risky.

“The premiums collected are quite minimal compared to the potential liabilities that the insurers are dealing with, making it an unprofitable proposition for domestic insurers,” she said.

Young audiences engaging in risky behaviour, alcohol, and camping at remote sites for long music festivals all presented a complicated picture for insurers.

Ms Hordern’s evidence suggested that Australian insurance companies had abandoned the live music sector, the federal government’s arts envoy Susan Templeman said.

Hearing chair Brian Mitchell also questioned how much consideration big international insurers actually gave to covering the Australian live music scene.

“They might just think of Australia as the land of spiders and snakes and crocodiles and blazing heat in the desert,” he suggested.

But Ms Hordern promised the council was working with the industry to improve its risk management, and said where international insurers were involved, venues and events could get cheaper cover through brokers familiar with the scene.

Some of the increased costs for venues could be due to inflation, a tough market for building cover, or the impacts of natural disasters on outdoor events, Ms Hordern said.

Mr Holmes said while he was not seeing a higher volume of claims or more expensive cover, policy limits had increased massively – up to about $50 million.

In some states, paying out a contentious claim was cheaper than fighting it in court, he said.

One case involved a hefty payout for a crowd-surfing fan who injured their neck when kicked in the head at a concert.

Mr Holmes advised clients to install lighting and other safety measures, as well as record live camera feeds that can be used to disprove contentious claims.

The inquiry has so far held more than a dozen hearings around Australia, and has previously been told a national strategy is needed to rescue the industry.