Regional LGBTIQA+ business owners sell to a smaller market with less anonymity

Small businesses outside the capital cities

According to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, there were 2.5 million small businesses in Australia in the year to 30 June 2023, of which 69 per cent were located in a greater capital city area and the remaining 31 per cent in regional Australia. In Queensland and Tasmania, regional businesses made up the majority. These figures do not record who owns the businesses, but they indicate that any discussion of LGBTIQA+ business conducted only from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane omits a substantial part of the economy. Most of the networks, fairs and festivals described earlier in this series are based in capital cities, although some of them run regional events.

Regional owners work under commercial conditions that differ from those of their city counterparts. A city business that loses a customer who disapproves of its owner can usually find another nearby, whereas a business in a town of a few thousand people sells to a known and limited group of customers, many of whom are also its neighbours, and this alters the owner’s assessment of how visible to be.

Evidence on LGBTIQA+ people in regional areas

Private Lives 3, published in 2020 by La Trobe University’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society and described by its authors as Australia’s largest national survey of the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ people, provides an indication of scale. LGBTIQ+ Health Australia’s summary of the findings reports that 22.3 per cent of LGBTIQA+ participants aged 18 and over lived in regional cities or towns and a further 6.4 per cent in rural and remote regions. These are shares of survey participants and cannot be read as shares of the LGBTIQA+ population, but they place more than a quarter of adult participants outside the major cities.

More recent evidence comes from the second year of Charles Sturt University’s Regional Rainbow Survey, a smaller study that drew on 117 adults living in rural and regional areas who identify as part of the LGBTIQA+ community, and in June 2026 its researchers reported that participants had experienced increased discrimination over the previous 12 months. More than 40 per cent said they had experienced discrimination from people they did not know, and approximately a quarter had experienced discrimination at work and from family and friends. A sample of 117 cannot describe regional Australia as a whole, and the survey did not address business owners, but it describes the social conditions in which regional owners operate and find their customers.

The effect of a smaller market on disclosure

The most detailed regional data on LGBTIQA+ people at work relates to employees. In 2019 Pride in Diversity, the workplace inclusion program of ACON, analysed the 27,349 responses to that year’s Australian Workplace Equality Index employee survey, 4,291 of which came from regional employees. Regional respondents were less likely than those in cities to see visible signs of LGBTIQA+ inclusion at work, at 57 per cent compared with 71 per cent, and considerably less likely to be aware of active allies, at 42 per cent compared with 72 per cent. Where they reported serious bullying to a manager or to human resources, their reports were more than twice as likely to be ignored. Regional employees were also more likely to experience unwanted jokes and comments, and the guide reports that in regional Australia customers were 16 per cent more likely to be the source, which is the result most relevant to business owners.

The guide attributes this to the loss of anonymity, stating that smaller rural communities "do not allow for the same level of anonymity" and that "being out at work invariably means being out and open to everyone." The data covers employees of organisations that participate in the index and is not a measure of what regional owners experience, but it points in the same direction as the earlier article in this series on disclosure, which found that lesbian, gay and bisexual workers were far more likely to be open with colleagues than with customers. An owner in a small town finds that separation harder to maintain, since customers, colleagues and neighbours are often the same people.

The commercial contribution of regional Pride events

Regional Pride events show how a small local economy responds when LGBTIQA+ visitors arrive in large numbers over a short period. ChillOut, held in Daylesford in Victoria’s Hepburn Shire, is run by a volunteer led registered charity. It reports that it attracts more than 30,000 visitors a year and contributes an estimated $7 million to the local economy annually, figures reported by Star Observer in June 2026 without a published method. For its thirtieth anniversary in 2027 the festival will expand to ten days, running from 27 February to 8 March. In 2023 the Victorian Government provided $50,000 to the festival from its Regional Events Fund, which aims to increase visitor numbers and length of stay, and the Member for Macedon said the funding was "providing a boost to local businesses and jobs."

Tropical Fruits holds its New Year’s Eve festival at the Lismore Showground in northern New South Wales. In January 2026 local news reported around 1,200 campers at the most recent festival, and the event coordinator said: "You can’t get a motel room in Lismore over that time." In a 2021 media release, Kevin Hogan MP described the event as providing "a $10 million boost to our local economy". The release gives no method, and we found no study supporting the figure.

Broken Heel, first held in 2015, took place at the Palace Hotel in Broken Hill, which Visit NSW describes as the spiritual home of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. In August 2024 its director, who also owns the hotel, announced that the 2024 festival would be the last, citing renovation plans at the hotel and a small team that needed a break from juggling the festival.

These cases indicate that regional Pride events have considerable commercial reach and that their continuation is uncertain. The economic figures were produced by organisers and politicians and have not been independently studied, and none of them distinguishes spending at LGBTIQA+ owned businesses from spending elsewhere. As Broken Heel showed, a festival that depends on a single venue or volunteer committee can end on the decision of very few people. For a regional owner, such an event adds trade during the weeks it runs, while the business depends on local customers for the rest of the year.

Practical resources for regional owners

The Victorian Government’s Rainbow Ready roadmap, launched in May 2022 for regional and rural communities, includes a setting guide published in October 2023 for regional and rural businesses that want to become more LGBTIQA+ inclusive. Its recommendations are specific: a visible statement of commitment, welcome symbols supported by actual practice, a policy for responding to LGBTIQA+phobic incidents that records what happened and what was done, and intake forms that collect information on sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status only when it is needed. The guide is written for businesses that serve LGBTIQA+ customers, and an LGBTIQA+ owner can also use it as a checklist of what a welcoming business looks like to customers who know what to look for.

The regional festival calendar is a second resource. An owner within reach of Daylesford, Lismore or another regional Pride event can plan stock, staffing, events and partnerships around the weeks when visitors are actively seeking LGBTIQA+ friendly businesses, and can decide how visible to be during those weeks without adopting the same profile for the whole year.

Implications for recognition schemes

Most recognition schemes for business owners, including directories, certifications and supplier registers, assume that an owner can be visible to buyers without being visible to the wider community. That assumption is often reasonable in a capital city and much harder to sustain in a small town, where commercial and personal relationships overlap. Australian research on regional LGBTIQA+ people deals mainly with health, safety and discrimination and contains very little on how they earn a living. Until that gap is addressed, any scheme designed in a capital city should be tested against the circumstances of an owner in Lismore or Broken Hill, who has far less control over who in the town learns of their identity.

Sources

1. Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Australia's small businesses in regional and metropolitan areas,
2. LGBTIQ+ Health Australia, Snapshot of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Statistics for LGBTIQ+ People, October 2021, citing Hill and others, Private Lives 3: The health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ people in Australia, La Trobe University, 2020,
3. La Trobe University, Private Lives 3: The health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ people in Australia, repository record, 2020,
4. Charles Sturt University, Regional LGBTQ+ community experiences higher rates of discrimination, 30 June 2026,
5. Pride in Diversity, Furthering LGBTQ Inclusion in Regional Australian Workplaces, 2019,
6. Star Observer, ChillOut Festival to expand to 10 day program for 30th anniversary in 2027, 22 June 2026,
7. Member for Macedon, ChillOut receives funding boost, 8 September 2023,
8. The Lismore App, Summer crowds bring New Year boost for Lismore businesses, 8 January 2026,
9. Kevin Hogan MP, Funding boost for Tropical Fruits, 13 July 2021,
10. Star Observer, It's official: Broken Heel Festival is ending after 2024, 6 August 2024,
11. Visit NSW, Broken Heel Festival,
12. City of Greater Geelong, Rainbow Ready roadmap,
13. Victorian Government, Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Rainbow Ready roadmap, Guide B4: Setting guide for businesses and other services, October 2023,
14. Diversity Council Australia, Out at Work: From Prejudice to Pride, synopsis, 2018 (cited in article 9 of this series),