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Australia Now

Arts Festivals

Just 50 years ago, there was only one major arts festival in Australia. Today all Australian capital cities have multi-arts festivals that showcase the best of local and international artists and performers. There are also hundreds of smaller community-based festivals, and national and regional festivals that focus on specific art forms.

Australia’s first multi-arts festivals were established in Perth in Western Australia in 1953 and in Adelaide in South Australia in 1960. Festivals in other cities and regional centres proliferated in the 1960s. Major multi-arts festivals are now held in Sydney (January), Canberra (February), Perth (February), Adelaide (March), Tasmania (March), Brisbane (July), Darwin (August) and Melbourne (October).

The federal government encourages arts festivals by providing financial support to regional and community organisers through a program called Festivals Australia. Funding is provided to community groups to present quality cultural projects, including innovative activities that have not been organised before in a particular region.

Major multi-arts and cultural festivals

The major capital city festivals, listed in the order in which they are held during the year, are:

Festivals with specific themes

Festivals with specific themes—such as film, writing, comedy or jazz, rock, folk or country music—are held throughout Australia.

Jazz—Jazz festivals include city-based events like the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, the Valley Jazz Festival in Brisbane and smaller events held in towns and rural communities such as Eltham and Wangaratta in Victoria; Dubbo, Merimbula, Thredbo and Wollongong in New South Wales; and Rockhampton in Queensland.

Rock music—There are many annual rock music festivals, including Homebake, which started in Byron Bay in northern New South Wales in 1996 and has been held in Sydney since 2000; the Falls Festival, which started in 1993 in the Victorian coastal town of Lorne; the Big Day Out, which started in Sydney in 1992 and over the years has been extended to Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Auckland in New Zealand and the Gold Coast in Queensland; and the Meredith Music Festival, which started in 1991 in Meredith, a small town west of Melbourne.

Folk music—Major folk festivals include the National Folk Festival, held in Canberra during the Easter period, where international and Australian artists perform at more than 100 concerts, workshops and poetry and storytelling sessions, and the Woodford Folk Festival, located in Maleny, Queensland and usually held in December. The Woodford Folk Festival presents up to 400 events over a six-day period, including concerts, dances, workshops, street theatre, films, writers’ panels, and art and craft workshops. The three-day Dreaming Festival, held in July at Woodford, presents a comprehensive showcase of Australian and international Indigenous arts.

Country music—Australia’s foremost annual country music event is the Tamworth Country Music Festival, held in Tamworth in New South Wales in January. The festival has been running since 1973. More than 50 000 people visited Tamworth for the event in 2007, which featured over 700 artists performing in 2300 events at about 100 different locations.

Film—Australia has at least seven major film festivals, including some that specifically showcase short films, such as TropFest. The Sydney Film Festival, established in 1954, conducts a year-round Travelling Film Festival for regional audiences in New South Wales. Other film festivals include the Melbourne International Film Festival; the Adelaide Film Festival; the Revelation Independent Film Festival in Perth, which focuses on documentaries; and the Flickerfest International Short Film Festival in Sydney.

Writing—Annual writers’ festivals are held in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney and in regional areas such as Byron Bay in northern New South Wales and Noosa in Queensland.

Comedy—The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is one of the three largest comedy festivals in the world, alongside the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. The festival was launched in 1987 by comedians Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage) and Peter Cook. It runs for three weeks and more than 400 000 people attend.

Cabaret—Recent years have seen renewed interest in cabaret in Australia. The 7th Adelaide Cabaret Festival, held in June 2007, featured 450 international and Australian artists giving 180 performances over 16 days, many of which were sold out.

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras—This festival started in 1978 as a local event with about 1000 people marching in support of International Gay Solidarity Day. The event grew in subsequent years and an arts festival was added in 1983. Today the annual Mardi Gras is one of the most colourful gay and lesbian events in the world, attracting audiences of hundreds of thousands of people from Australia and overseas. The event is marked by a month of high-quality arts, sporting and social events, over February and March each year, culminating in the traditional parade and party.

Croc Festival—The Croc Festival is held annually over three days at eight venues and encourages Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and others in regional and remote communities to celebrate youth and culture. Festival activities are aimed at promoting education, careers and healthy lifestyles, as well as sports, visual and performance arts, and reconciliation. The Croc Festival started in Weipa in Far North Queensland in 1998 with 350 students from 17 schools and now attracts almost 20 000 students from 475 schools.

Key Facts

Further information

This fact sheet is also available to download ( PDF)

last updated March 2008