Increased production and transport costs has already made touring outside capital cities unviable for many theatre companies.
For those that do make the leap of faith, shows are being met with poor ticket sales and cancellations resulting in a cohort of young students being left out from the arts.
Country Arts SA's Tickets On Us program is shouting bus and show tickets for regional school groups, foster families, refugees and migrants for its fourth year running.
The program has become an essential backdrop of some regional centre's arts scene where theatre companies competing with increased production and touring costs have been met with poor ticket sales and no-shows.
The South Australian cities of Port Pirie and Whyalla both missed out on the long-anticipated Trophy Boys tour presented by the State Theatre Company South Australia and Country Arts SA this year due to poor sales.
It's a running theme for Whyalla Secondary College performing arts teacher Anna Hildebrandt, who said her school was the only one that booked for the event.
"What happens to the director, that sort of stuff? They've lost two shows," she said.
"Theatre or performance of any kind that is a bit more unusual or a bit more out of the box doesn't come here very often. People aren't necessarily buying tickets to it.”
For a city facing up to 600 lay offs due to the permanent closure of an ageing steelmaking blast furnace, finances are constantly at the front of mind for families.
Local art shows are proving to be the first cab off the rank.
"When the Whyalla Player's Group did their last show, which they did Jesus Christ Superstar as their musical, there was a lot of talk about spending and $50 to go to the theatre is just not tenable at the moment," Ms Hildebrandt said.
"I know that their sales were not quite what they had wanted it to be at the time."
Country Arts Foundation Board chair Robyn Brown says young creatives living in even smaller towns across Australia were the most vulnerable to the regional arts gap.
Bus tickets have climbed threefold in some regional centres, making the Ticket On Us transport service a key aspect of the initiative.
"Hopefully we can also pay for quite a few buses, we can actually transport hundreds of children from their regional towns to the theatre centre," she said.
Ms Brown said with the enormous costs borne by theatre companies to travel long distances, more should be done to fund smaller town tours.
"You never recoup those costs. It's impossible, no matter how many performances you do."
The initiative is part of AusArt Day being held on Thursday, with 65 musicians and music organisations calling for donations from a total of 355 participants across the arts sector, hoping that people will still be able to give to the arts during a cost of living crisis.
The first AusArt Day in 2025 raised more than $2.42 million from 4768 individual donors, according to figures from Creative Australia.
