Fire Fight Australia’s final fundraising tally passes $11 million

The historic Fire Fight Australia concert raised more than $11 million for good causes, organisers have confirmed.

A year on from the all-star concert at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium, the fundraiser has raked in $11.1 million, a sum distributed to hundreds of aid projects, and for the support of communities, families and wildlife affected by the unprecedented bushfires in 2019 and 2020.

According to a statement issued by TEG, the full sum has been pumped into providing vital Rescue (Rural and regional fire and rescue services in affected states), Relief & Recovery (Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery), Rehabilitation (RSPCA Bushfire Appeal) and Rebuilding (The Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal, PCYC, the BCA’s BizRebuild programme).

“It’s hard to believe that Fire Fight Australia was just a year ago, given all that has happened to our industry, let alone the world since,” comments Geoff Jones, CEO of TEG.

“We are proud that the money raised through the concert has made a positive difference to communities that are still recovering from the devastating bushfires of 2019/20.”

TEG Dainty and TEG Live were producers of the 10-hour concert, which featured performances from Queen and Adam Lambert, 5 Seconds of Summer, Olivia Newton-John, John Farnham, Amy Shark, k.d. lang, Alice Cooper and many more.

Queen and Adam Lambert

Seven’s live TV broadcast on 16th February, 2020 scored an audience of more than one million, helping the network win the ratings on the day.

Across the country, Mumbrella reported, the late coverage bagged 1.560 million viewers, with prime-time drawing 1.510 million. Average viewership across the open-air event was 1.11 million national viewers nationally, and 712,000 metro.

The whole world was watching. In its year-end review, Google reported Fire Fight Australia was the second-most searched concert on its platform.

“Our thanks again to the 23 artists and bands and to over 1,500 suppliers and volunteers that helped ensure we were able to achieve that amazing result by providing services at cost or free of charge,” adds Jones. “It was an enormous effort from the music industry to pull the concert together in five weeks and we are proud of what we achieved through our collective effort.”

Queen at Fire Fight Australia

Those 23 performers on the day also appeared on the companion album Artists Unite for Fire Fight via Sony Music, which went straight to No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart.

In a statement issued Monday, Sony Foundation Australia announced that $770,000 had been donated to help young people in five bushfire affected communities.

Jones, whose company is parent to Ticketek, Qudos Bank Arena, TEG Dainty and other businesses, adds: “We are all looking forward to the day soon when we can reconnect once again through the unbeatable power of live music at scale.”

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.