Music Australia was due to hold its annual Contemporary Music Roundtable this August, which regrettably has been cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. It was envisaged as a two day event at Studios 301 coupled with a meeting of Music Australia’s Councillors network. The comprehensive scope of the event makes it less easily replaced with a shorter online meeting. In view of the pandemic and the very vulnerable place music industry workers find themselves in at the moment, we thought a fitting replacement initiative would be to produce a ‘video check in’ with key organisations who look after the welfare of music industry workers: Support Act,  CrewCare; Entertainment Assist; MEAA, and the Arts Wellbeing Collective.

The video is around 20 minutes long and we’ve asked the organisations to focus on what has been achieved in recent months in terms of support, what remains to be done, and what additional support they believe is needed. Music Australia’s musicians and addiction book is also briefly profiled at the end of the video. While these interviews were filmed in July 2020, and there have been additional announcements about government assistance since filming, we expect much of this to be relevant well into 2021. Thanks to all of our partner organisations for participating. They’re all doing fantastic work and it’s a privilege to be able to feature them.