Melt OPEN, a major new festival of Queer art and culture, is set to make its mark on the vibrant city of Brisbane, Australia. Premiering in Oct/Nov 2024, Melt OPEN promises to be an unforgettable celebration of diversity, inclusivity and creative expression.

Building on the success of festival predecessor Melt, now in its seventh year at Brisbane Powerhouse, Melt OPEN is a celebration of Queer art, artists, allies, icons, sport and ideas. Melt OPEN aims to raise the bar higher with more venues, more artists, and more LGBTQIA+ love in a city that is gearing up to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032.

An open access festival similar to fringe events around the world, Melt OPEN will be staged at venues throughout central Brisbane including Fortitude Valley, Newstead, New Farm, Brisbane City, West End and Wooloongabba.

Be Bold. Be Brave. Be Brisbane.

We believe that a Festival should be festive and celebrate the personality of its city.

We are Brisbane’s most anticipated event of the year, bringing people together as they awake from their winter slumber for an explosion of arts performances and experiences.

Brisbane Festival is unlike anything else you can experience in the world. We redefine what an International Arts Festival looks and feels like, staying ahead of the game and bringing the next generation with us.

The river and iconic city landmarks are our stage as we create the art that enlivens, delights and disrupts. The curated multi-arts program presents a bold international program transporting our audience beyond the everyday through captivating performances and installations from across the world. We participate in global conversations. Brisbane is a city with boundless ambition, and the program celebrates this through collaborations, commissions and presentations.

We are deeply committed to making the impossible possible for our audiences and our artists. Brisbane Festival is an important time of the year when our artists are pushed beyond the horizon to make the work of their dreams come to life. We inspire audiences with new ideas and experiences that leave life-long impressions. We are at the heart of integrating arts and culture as a vital part of Brisbane’s future, creating an unwavering demand for this wonderful Festival.

Brisbane Festival acknowledges this country’s First Nations people and with their leadership and guidance, we celebrate that deep cultural legacy. We create a rich multi-arts program made by and with our local Indigenous community.

As our city landscape changes and undergoes unprecedented growth, we move forward with gusto, determination, authenticity and excitement. Brisbane Festival is seizing the moment and heralding a new beginning.

Cairns Festival is an annual 10-day celebration of art, culture and the beauty of living in Tropical North Queensland. The event delivers a vibrant, progressive and collaborative festival showcasing the rich cultural identity of Cairns, including the much-anticipated return of Reef Lights at the Esplanade Lagoon.

Since it’s inception in 1961, Cairns Festival continues to proudly showcase the breadth and depth of our local creatives, as well as brings world-class performers to the region.

PUNQ is a biennial place-making festival which activates and engages with spaces, histories, and futures through art. It celebrates the distinct landscapes of North Queensland to inspire cultural exchange and reimagine expectations, transform perceptions and provide unique creative experiences for locals and visitors alike.

The festival presents immersive journeys across North Queensland on Gurambilbarra (Townsville), Yunbenun (Magnetic Island), Warrgamay, Nywaigi & Bandjin Country (Hinchinbrook) and Gudjal Country (Charters Towers).

Cairns Indigenous Art Fair is an arts and cultural event in the northern Australian city of Cairns, that showcases art by Contemporary Indigenous Australian artists. CIAF is committed to strengthening and celebrating culture, creating professional development opportunities for artists, and cultural exchange between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and visitors.

CIAF is focused on offering an ethical art market place, attracting national and international collectors and curators, commissioning new work and providing pathways for emerging visual and performance artists.

Anywhere Festival is an annual Brisbane based festival for performance anywhere but traditional theatre spaces. Anywhere Festivals makes it possible for performance makers to create works anywhere and for audiences to engage with storytelling while discovering local nooks and crannies. For audiences, Anywhere Festival becomes a discovery of places and performances by using local nooks and crannies: poetry in light houses, circus in driveways, music in backyards, storytelling on ferries, theatre in hedge mazes and musicals in aeroplanes.

BrisAsia Festival returns from 1-18 February 2024 to celebrate Lunar New Year and the Year of the Dragon, a creature that typically embodies the qualities of power, nobleness, leadership, luck, and success. What better way to kick start your year than to connect with culture at BrisAsia Festival, with something on offer for the whole family.

Over three weeks, audiences can experience the transformative power of live performance, learn, and grow through immersive experiences and travel the length and breadth of Asia across the incredibly packed festival program that has something for everyone.

horizon festival is seeking expressions of interest from artists and creative practitioners — visual artists, designers (from graphic to fabric), performers, musicians, and all other disciplines — to work with the festival from 2024 and beyond. closing february 1.

Our Sunshine Coast arts sector is growing (and evolving) and as the regions premier arts festival, we want to work with artists in new ways. This call-out invites ambitious, practicing artists that live, work, or have a connection to the Sunshine Coast to reach out to us. No theme, no guidelines, no agenda — just you and your work.   

Horizon Festival’s commitment is to embed Sunshine Coast artists throughout the festival program — from start to finish. This is your opportunity to connect with us.  

Questions? Contact a real person here: horizon@sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au. 

Undercover Artist Festival is a biannual festival held in conjunction with Brisbane Festival. This disability-led festival invites artists to take centre stage to showcase their work.

Welcoming performances across music, dance, theatre, comedy, poetry, circus and creative panels, artists will take to the stage September 2023.

Horizon Festival returns Aug 25 – Sep 3

The sun has risen and so has their full program. From the banks of Stumers Creek at dawn to conversations with men. There’s The Blak Laundry and the Dirty Laundry. From forgotten spaces, circus for grown-ups, rivers and pool toys, a night in Glambour.

Copy re-shared from ArtsCoast

Copy re-shared from ArtsHub.

SPARK Ipswich is an 11-day city-wide event celebrating the people, places, arts and culture of Ipswich. The 2023 program will deliver up a fresh program of light installations, projection, music, comedy, arts, exhibitions, culture, technology, collaboration and discussion will take over the City from 6-16 July.

There are returning favourites including ‘Little Day Out’ a contemporary music, arts and sustainability festival just for kids, ‘WOMI – World of Music Ipswich’, and the popular ‘deLight’ projections.

At night, gather your family and friends and explore vibrant ‘deLight’ projections full of life and colour, ‘pixel’, and ‘Inhabited Ipswich’ shopfront art installations, or ‘Follow the Light’ with landmark lighting installations.  Finish the night by exploring the live venue programming running in the CBD throughout SPARK at venues such as Ipswich Civic Centre and Banshees Bar and Art Space. 

During the day is your chance to explore your creative side with IMMERSE. Tulmur Place will transform into a playground of family friendly arts workshops, performances on the main stage and food trucks galore.

The festival will even hit the road! ‘SPARK on Tour’ takes an interactive, theatrical play-based music and literacy experience for 2–7-year-olds to Ipswich Libraries across the City. 

To view the full SPARK Ipswich festival program head to SPARKipswich.com.au.

For more information visit http://www.SPARKipswich.com.au

ArtsCoast at 2ND Space

Project24 is an artist in residence program that provides space for artists to develop, collaborate, experiment and showcase their work at 2ND Space, Nambour. This year we will host 24 x residencies engaging hundreds of artists from across the region and beyond.

Each month we invite YOU to come and meet the artist, see what they have been up to and connect with other creatives on the coast. This month The Refinery 5.0 have taken over Studio 1 & 3 at 2ND Space this month to continue to develop their creative enterprise's as part of the 2023 program. While in the MakerSpace we have the Alison Mooney , discussing things like:
What is funny? And exploring a new series of works through portraiture, digital collage and comedy.