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Brisbane Festival

An annual international arts festival

Read the interview with Teresa Walters, Marketing Director

Brisbane Festival is one of the largest and most diverse arts festivals in Australia, featuring music, theatre, multimedia, dance, comedy, performance art and photography, along with forums and lecture series on universal and local issues affecting the community. The festival consists of hundreds of individual ticketed and free events that take place at various locations throughout Brisbane, from suburban backyards to the city’s dedicated music and performance venues.

Now an annual event, Brisbane Festival runs over approximately three weeks starting with the QBE Riverfire party, and plays host to numerous international performers as well as interstate and local artists.

Previously the main intention of the festival has been to expose the undiscovered talents of young, adventurous and anarchic theatre artists, locally, nationally and internationally. The Brisbane Festival aims to support the artists and companies who struggle for recognition on the cusp of the mainstream and celebrates the raw, incongruous and obscure.

Brisbane Festival began in 1996 as a joint initiative between the Queensland Government and the Brisbane City Council to foster the arts. It evolved from the Warana Festival, which was first held in 1961 and was billed as “entertainment for the people, by the people”. From 1996 – 2008 Brisbane Festival was a biennial event. In 2009 the festival combined with the former Riverfestival to include the Riverfire fireworks display, and is now an annual festival.

Last updated by Rhyanna Hewitt (2011-10-29)