Where did the Kiwi concerts go? Big-name stars snub us for the Aussies

Wednesday, 17 September 2025

This story was originally published in April but is being republished now as the Government investigates what is holding Eden Park back from hosting more concerts.

Lady Gaga is the latest pop megastar to leave New Zealand off their touring schedule. What will it take to bring back big-ticket live entertainment? Stewart Sowman-Lund investigates.

When Lady Gaga visited New Zealand in June 2012, she promised the crowd she’d be back.

Thirteen years later, we’re still waiting. The pop icon confirmed she’s heading to Australia for a stadium tour in December, but New Zealand has once again been left off the list.

It highlights a growing trend of pop megastars bypassing our shores entirely.

The issue was brought to the fore last year when Taylor Swift’s box office-busting Eras Tour missed New Zealand despite close to 150 dates around the world. Australia got seven dates across two cities: four in Sydney and three in Melbourne.

Music journalist Chris Schulz, who writes the Boiler Room Substack, lists off some of the other names that have forgotten about Aotearoa.

“We’ve had Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Green Day, The Killers - and then Oasis in November,” he says.

“Most of those acts have always come here. Green Day has always played here, Billie Eilish has always come here. I think fans are right to raise their eyebrows and go, ‘What’s going on?’.”

Sources say Olivia Rodrigo had gone so far as to lock in at least one date at Auckland’s Spark Arena for late 2024, but no New Zealand dates were included by the time her tour was announced, and it’s not clear why the Auckland concert fell through.

Eilish, meanwhile, has visited New Zealand on four occasions dating back to a 2017 appearance at the Tuning Fork when she was just 15, but skipped us on her recent tour.

It’s clear something has shifted. Those spoken to by the Sunday Star-Times put it down to various things: the economy, the growing dominance of powerful touring companies, or just our small population. Few had solutions, perhaps because there aren’t really any.

Trans-Tasman travel a new normal for music fans

One unanticipated consequence has been a boom for the travel industry. A banner advertising Lady Gaga in Australia was splashed across New Zealand’s Ticketmaster homepage on Wednesday, and sent out to mailing list subscribers, causing heart attacks for any of the star’s “Little Monsters” briefly tricked into thinking the star was visiting us.

Digital billboards advertising the tour have been spotted in Auckland too, an unusual move given the concerts being promoted are in a different country.

Data confirms a notable uptick in trans-Tasman travel coinciding with major live events.

“During Taylor Swift's tour in Australia last year, bookings to Sydney and Melbourne nearly doubled compared to the fortnight beforehand and afterwards,” says Jen Staples, air and product manager at Flight Centre Travel Group.

“More recently for Billie Eilish's Australian shows, the weeks her shows were on in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, bookings were up 20% on an average week in February, and also up 27% compared to the same time last year.”

Schulz believes it’s a growing problem for local music fans.

“I don’t blame [performers] because touring is so expensive … but on the other side of that, fans are just missing out. We can’t afford to travel to Australia three or four times a year to see our favourite artists.”

Are we really missing out?

Others, like David Benge from promoting company TEG Live, push back on the assertion that New Zealand is suffering.

We’ve had a massive few years, he argues, and believes what we’re experiencing now is just a “two- or three-year blip”.

“Coldplay, Metallica, Fred Again, Eminem, Guns ‘N Roses. All of these artists have been in the last five, six years or so, and there's Ed Sheeran - inarguably the largest artists in the world,” he says.

“I think there's a hangover from Covid … there was a real glut of acts.”

Country music has had a real boom since the pandemic, Benge says, and we’ve had the “biggest of the biggest” like Luke Combs visit our shores over the past 12 months.

“And Metallica, I would say, would have to be the biggest hard rock band in the world at the moment that I'm aware of and they're coming.”

Outside of Gaga, Benge says most stadium-level artists over the past summer and into this year have also visited Aotearoa, although The Weeknd is one glaring exception - he cancelled his New Zealand dates but rescheduled some of his Australian shows.

Layton Lillas, president of the New Zealand Promoters Association, also reckons the New Zealand market has been “saturated” since Covid-19.

“For myself, as a concert-goer, I'm now choosing. And there was a time … when I used to just go to a lot of concerts. It felt like I wasn't spoiled for choice, whereas now it's like, ‘oh, shall I go to Toto, or maybe put my money to Metallica’ - I feel like we're getting more than enough.”

Lillas says there are a lot of “gatekeepers” in the music industry, such as promoters or managers, who dictate where a performer will visit. If an artist wants to do 50 gigs in a year, it’s up to them to try and “maximise” income.

“It's easier to do a multiple-night stand at the [Melbourne Cricket Ground] or Rod Laver Arena, rather than hop skip over to Brisbane or Perth or Auckland. I personally believe it's because the head offices of some of these companies are run out of Australia … and they're literally looking and going, ‘How can we maximise our return?’

“Well, it makes a lot more sense to just stay in Melbourne, rather than go to Adelaide, or go to Perth or go over the ditch to New Zealand.”

Schulz notes that a lot of the major acts - like Lady Gaga and Olivia Rodrigo - are being toured by Live Nation.

“They are sort of in charge of that touring circuit and if we’re no longer on that circuit, well, they’re the biggest promoters in town and that’s something to worry about,” he says.

Live Nation New Zealand did not respond to requests for comment.

It’s the economy, stupid

Schulz thinks Taylor Swift “really changed the formula” when it came to touring. “The trend of artists playing in major stadiums, setting up shop, doing multiple nights and expecting fans to come to them,” he says.

“Everyone follows the Taylor Swift model … because she’s doing it on this massive scale.”

But Benge disagrees. “I don’t think … that’s now the new model,” he says.

“Let's leave the last week of chaos aside, but speaking historically, the Australian dollar is always weaker than the US dollar, but our dollar is even weaker again.

“I think the other factor is, and maybe these go hand in hand, we have a small population. And so you head to Australia, you can do those two big cities, maybe Brisbane as well … and you know that in that territory you're going to yield the best return you can. It's very rare that going to New Zealand is going to add significantly more revenue to your tour.”

At least one of Combs’ two Eden Park gigs struggled to sell out, while tickets for rapper Travis Scott’s gig at the stadium were being sold for as little as $30 in the lead up. Metallica is now the only stadium gig on the horizon despite Eden Park being permitted to put on 12 gigs a year.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a calendar that empty. That’s a definite trend, whether it’s a permanent trend or not,” says Schulz.

“They’re expecting us to go to Australia and that’s just how it’s going to be now, I absolutely hope it’s not the case.”

The other “huge factor”, says Benge, is that New Zealand has a 20% withholding tax on international artists. “Australia actually has a higher one, but they have a system in place where you can apply for a variance on your withholding tax.”

Is there a solution?

It’s hard to find a fix to a problem that has so many variables. Eden Park’s chief executive Nick Sautner says that New Zealand has enjoyed shows by some of the world’s biggest artists so “the demand is clearly there”.

However, he acknowledges a risk that more will bypass Aotearoa entirely.

“Attracting more world-class acts requires a collaborative approach and a change of thinking, which would see venues, promoters, councils and central government working together to ensure New Zealand is part of the routing for global tours,” he says.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has been a strong advocate for a ‘bed night’ levy to help pay for big events, though the Government isn’t keen. Losing out on major events to Australia was “symptomatic of the lack of sustainable funding options available”, he says.

“This will continue to happen until the Government helps with a long-term solution.”

Schulz agrees that some sort of incentive could be what’s needed, arguing that we help entice international movie productions to New Zealand through rebates.

“[Australia] knows the impact those shows will have on hospitality … and it makes the city vibrant and alive. Maybe we need to place more emphasis on that in New Zealand and have the Government or local council step up. Maybe that means putting some money up front.”

Sautner also advocated for more support, citing Melbourne’s commitment to reaffirm itself as an events destination.

“While Australian state governments frequently offer grant packages and incentives to attract international artists, New Zealand’s Major Events Fund is largely focused on sports. It also requires applications to be submitted at least two years in advance - an unrealistic timeline for international concert tours,” he says.

“To unlock the potential of major live events we need leadership from both council and central government. The Kennett Government’s approach in Victoria during the 1990s is a model worth revisiting - at a time when the state was economically challenged, a bold strategy was implemented to make Victoria not just the events capital of Australia, but of the world. New Zealand can - and should - aspire to the same.”

Sautner didn’t have any hints about what could be in the pipeline for Eden Park beyond Metallica this coming November, though the Star-Times knows of least one megastar being courted by local promoters. Nothing can be confirmed yet.

“Kids want to go to shows and they need to be able to go to shows,” says Schulz. “It sucks for your average fan; you grow up loving their music and you should be able to go and see them if they’re in this part of the world.”

In the meantime, for fans of Lady Gaga, including this humble reporter; it’s time to check your passport is still valid and start saving.

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