International Performance and Touring Activity

To guide initial investments, the Music Australia Council endorsed the following definition of ‘contemporary music’, which you must meet to be eligible. 

“Australian contemporary music is any genre or subgenre of music currently composed, written, produced by Australians and licensed, recorded, presented, and distributed through commercial and non-commercial activity. For the purposes of Music Australia’s initial investments, the focus will be on musical works that are new, original and relevant to contemporary Australia”.  

If you don’t meet the definition above for contemporary music, you may be eligible to apply for our Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups, Arts Projects for Organisations, or International programs.

• Activity must start between 1 April 2025 and 30 June 2025, and be completed within 12 months.
• An applicant can submit a maximum of one application to each category of the Music Australia Export Development Fund.
• The budget in your application needs to demonstrate matched funding (see ‘What we mean by matched funding’ for more information), and evidence of matched funding must be supplied in your support material.
• Planning and preparation such as arranging or booking dates, venues, contracts, travel and visas, and rehearsals in your country of residence, are not eligible activities for the purposes of this grant and should not be included in the activity details section of your application. We encourage and expect considered planning and preparation of your activities in advance of the proposed international activity dates you are applying for. If you are unsure about the eligibility of any part of your proposed activity, please contact musicaustraliagrants@creative.gov.au.

Please complete the budget in the application form. Your budget does not need to have a net zero balance, but we ask that you explain your budget surplus or deficit in the application form, if applicable.

You must provide evidence of your matched funding in your support material – if you do not provide this evidence your application will be deemed ineligible. Please see the list below for examples of evidence you can supply, watch the video, or contact Music Australia if you have questions.

The budget in your application needs to demonstrate matched funding. Every application (individual, group, organisation or company) must demonstrate that they are contributing an amount equal to, or more than, the total funding request, ensuring that the co-investment by industry is, at a minimum, matching the Government’s investment.

What we mean by ‘matched funding’:

1. You are required to match the Music Australia Export funding for your project on at least a 50:50 basis.
2. Your share of project costs is 50% of eligible expenditure up to the maximum grant limit and all remaining costs not met by the grant.
3. You cannot use in-kind (non-financial) contributions for matched funding.
4. You cannot use other government grant sources to match the Music Australia Export grant.
5. You will need to provide documentary evidence of your ability to fund your share of project costs in your support material.

Evidence might include:

• Advanced ticket sales for upcoming tour
• Festival guarantees
• Previous tour reconciliations.
• Advance from a label or publisher
• Merchandise sales
• Upcoming or past royalty payment
• Commitment to a future sync placement
• Available bank balance (provide a document or screenshot of the account balance and account name – removing other personal and transaction details)
• Crowd funding (including Australian Cultural Fund (ACF) generated income).

A minimum of $5,000, up to a maximum of $25,000, whereby the recipient must demonstrate an investment of an equal or greater amount to the funding request. 

The International Performance and Touring fund (Category 1) is designed to support activity that includes:  

• Headline tour, support tour, opening slot (or combination of all three) 
• Festival or Biennale appearance/s 
• Commissioned performance/s 
• Official showcase performance 

As well as costs directly associated with the activity listed above, you may apply for all costs associated with completing your export activity. Eligible costs include but are not limited to:

• artist and creative worker fees
• flights, accommodation, per diems, ground transport costs
• travel insurance
• visas
• freight or baggage costs
• childcare, carer and access costs
• tickets and/or registration costs to attend events
• costs associated with reducing the environmental impact of your activity.

Access costs are legitimate expenses and may be included in your application. We encourage applicants to ensure that their work is accessible to everyone. Budgets may include costs associated with making activities accessible to a wide range of people (e.g. performances using Auslan, translation to other languages, captioning, audio description, temporary building adjustments, and materials in other formats).

If you are a d/Deaf applicant, an applicant with disability, or are working with d/Deaf artists or artists with disability, you may apply for access costs associated with the use of an interpreter, translation services, specific technical equipment, carer or support worker assistance. Please contact Artists Services to discuss your specific needs.

Your application must comply with the following Protocols. We may contact you to request further information during the assessment process, or if successful, as a condition of your funding. 

• Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts 

All applications involving First Nations artists, communities or subject matter must adhere to these Protocols, and provide evidence of this in their application and support material. More information on the First Nations Protocols is available here. 

• Commonwealth Child Safe Framework 

All successful applicants are required to comply with all Australian law relating to employing or engaging people who work or volunteer with children, including working with children checks and mandatory reporting. Successful organisations who provide services directly to children, or whose funded activities involve contact with children, will additionally be required to implement the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. 

Applications to the International Performance and Touring Activity fund will be assessed by Industry Advisors. After assessing and ranking the eligible applications using the assessment criteria, the highest ranked applications will be awarded funding. If demand exceeds the available funding the assessment panel reserves the right to draw the remaining applications deemed fundable via a ballot. A non-random sample bias will be applied to the ballot to take into account diversity measures.

As well as meeting the eligibility requirements listed above, industry advisors will review your application using the criteria below.

Viability

Assessors will consider whether your activity is feasible. Some ways to consider viability are listed below.

• The activity is confirmed
• Evidence of matched funding at a minimum of 50% of the total budget
• Realistic budgeting and touring logistics
• The relevance and timeliness of the proposed activity
• The skills and abilities of those involved, and their relevance to the activity
• Well-researched and rationalised activity, particularly if this is your first engagement with an international market
• Measures being applied to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people involved in the project
• Measures being applied to ensure the proposed activity is accessible
• Where relevant to the project, evidence that the protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts have been adhered to, or the relevant cultural protocols for the international jurisdiction in which you are working.

Impact

Assessors will consider the impact of your activity. Some ways to consider impact are listed below.

• The extent to which this activity develops an international market or relationship, or enhances international networks, audiences, and profile.

Alignment 

Assessors will consider how your activity meets one or more of the principles and actions of the five pillars identified in the National Cultural Policy – Revive, and the goals of Music Australia.

This may include:

• First Nations arts and culture are First Nations-led
• Artists and arts workers have career structures that are long-term and sustainable, supported by vocational pathways
• Creative industries and practice are future focused, technology enabled, networked and globally recognised, including through reciprocal exchange, export and cultural diplomacy
• Arts and culture are generative (creating new works and supporting emerging artists) and preservative (protecting heritage and conserving cultural memory)
• Development of original music
• Growing the market for contemporary Australian music
• Training and skills development for artists, and industry professionals
• Activities that promote the Government’s international arts and cultural engagement and cultural diplomacy priorities
• Discoverability and working with digital service providers and radio networks to support Australian contemporary music.

You must submit support material with your application. The industry advisors will review your support material including your evidence of your matched funding and whether the activity is confirmed. It can also be used to gain a better understanding of your activity, and arts practice.

Your application will be ineligible if it does not include support material providing evidence of your matched funding.

We strongly advise you to include evidence of confirmed activity (such as letters and invitations).  

The following support material may also be included with your application:  

• how cultural protocols have been or will be observed and permissions obtained (if relevant to your activity) 
• evidence of your practice relevant to the activity for which you are seeking funding, such as a website link, audio and/or video links (maximum duration 10 minutes in total), images and/or written material
• biographies and CVs for key artists, personnel or other collaborators involved in the activity (no longer than 2 A4 pages in total)
• letters of support (up to 5 letters of support, with each letter not exceeding one A4 page)
• risk management – for international travel, you may submit a one-page risk management plan (in any format). If you require a template, you can download a template here.  

We prefer to receive information via web links (URLs). 

You may submit up to three URLs per application. For example, you could include a link to your website, a link to a video or audio file, and a link to scanned documents demonstrating your matched funding and letters of confirmation.  

If you are not able to provide URLs, you may upload support material as attachments (up to two PDF or Word documents). You may collate documents to include multiple pages.

We do not accept support material submitted by post.  If you need help submitting material online, or you are not sure what support material to submit, please contact us. 

To help with future applications, we have summarised feedback from the previous round/s of the Export Development Fund.
Please note that Music Australia receives many more applications than it is able to fund and has the difficult task of deciding between many strong proposals in order to allocate limited funds.

General feedback (in addition to the essential eligibility criteria):

• do not assume assessors have existing knowledge of the artists’ work or activity
• use the Activity Details section of the application form to list the proposed dates, activity, location/s and whether the activity is confirmed
• if applying to more than 1 category, be clear about the plan for the specific category you are applying for – do not copy the same text across each application. Each category is assessed on its individual merits, by different assessment panels
• include clear evidence of ALL your matched funding – labelled in your support materials as ‘Matched funding evidence’ or similar
• unlike many other grant programs, your budget does not need to balance – a surplus or deficit with a clear, brief explanation is acceptable when applying to this fund.

The strongest applications:

• include clear, concise and relevant support material that is easy to access
• clearly explain why the time is right for the proposed activity, and the potential impact
• clearly demonstrate why the applicant/s are targeting the proposed country/ies or territory/ies for the activity
• show a well thought out, realistic and productive timeline of activity, leveraging available opportunities
• explain who the artist/s will be working with and why, including specific names and organisations
• include all, or a high proportion, of confirmed activity
• may use metrics and data, such as streaming numbers and audience/engagement insights (where relevant), to strengthen the application
• include a clearly articulated budget with costs that are commensurate to the proposed activity.

We encourage those who have applied and been unsuccessful for previous rounds of this fund to use this feedback to strengthen their application, and re-apply for future rounds where possible (noting date eligibility requirements).