This article draws from a wider research project undertaken in 2018 in Armidale, a small regional city in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, to explore the challenges commercial venues face in presenting and maintaining a regular live music programme. An analysis of the main themes suggests that the issues regional venues encounter are often qualitatively and/or quantitatively different from those facing their urban counterparts. This research found that regulatory issues, such as licensing, planning and noise, were not considered major impediments to regularly hosting live music. Rather, finding and accessing affordable quality bands in the numbers and styles needed to keep audiences coming to gigs, and getting audiences to regularly attend and spend money in the numbers needed to sustain the gigs, were identified as ongoing difficulties. Although venues in larger metropolitan cities are often confronted with similar problems, these are not the sort of issues that stand out in the research in this area. Rather the regulatory environment is emphasised. By drawing attention to the non-regulatory challenges regional venues face, important new avenues of research are opened up that will benefit live music scenes across Australia.

本文取材于2018年在澳大利亚新南威尔士州（NSW）的一个区域性小城市Armidale进行的一项更广泛的研究项目，以探讨商业场所在展示和维护常规现场音乐节目方面面临的挑战。对主要主题的分析表明，区域性场所遇到的问题通常在质量和/或数量上与城市场所所面临的问题不同。这项研究发现，诸如许可，计划和噪音之类的监管问题并未被视为定期主持现场音乐的主要障碍。相反，发现和访问价格合理且价格合理的乐队，以保持观众参加演出，并让观众定期参加并花钱维持演出需要的钱，被确定为持续的困难。尽管大城市中的场所经常遇到类似的问题，但这些并不是该领域研究中突出的问题。而是强调监管环境。通过吸引人们关注区域性场所所面临的非监管挑战，新的重要研究途径得以开辟，这将使澳大利亚的现场音乐界受益匪浅。