Almost a Half-century of Creative Community Connections

Cairns Festival has a rich and storied history as our community's major celebration of arts, culture, creativity, and place. The opening of the Green Island jetty on 26 May, 1962 helped establish the first annual Cairns Tourist Festival, renamed "Fun in the Sun" the following year. Since then Tropical North Queensland's most significant annual celebration, now in its 49th year, has experienced a number of changes — including its re-launch in the early nineties as "Reef Festival" and another dynamic incarnation in 2002 as "Festival Cairns."

A new chapter began in 2009 for Festival Cairns when its founding organisation, Cairns Regional Council, developed an ambitious three-year plan to manage and grow the annual celebration. And this year, with a minor alteration, our two words managed to switch places. We decided to put our city first, as our creative gathering nears the half-century mark, and are now known as Cairns Festival. Our 2010 season is made possible by a wonderful array of local businesses and arts supporters—and we are grateful that they are part of the Festival Family. Please see below and support our generous sponsors, and click here to read more about our partnership ethic and new sponsor opportunities...

The Council's Cultural Services & Facilities branch now oversees programming and operations through a professional in-house Festival Team. From a brand new Festival Headquarters in City Place, our team is available to guide creative projects, develop artistic collaborations, and drive future festival content and partnerships. We keep an open door, and invite the community in to bring festival projects and cultural collaborations.  

We at Cairns Festival are working with our colleagues at Cairns Regional Council to grow our local, national and international profile. Last year our events attracted significant coverage and overseas exposure, and were enjoyed by an audience of over 100,000 people here at home.  This season, we offer our most ambitious slate of cultural activities ever — with over 80 unique events to fill our 17-day run. Made possible by hundreds of artists, musicians, actors, producers, and community leaders, the Festival is a fusion of ideas and forms of expression.

The bedrock of our celebration is the community of sponsors and corporate citizens who are helping us present the concerts, theatre troupes, exhibitions, films, dance, and public art. While we got a late start this season, Festival Sponsorship Coordinator, Jacqui Nolan of Sauce Events, jumped right in and built a robust array of business leaders and corporate partners. Those listed below have generously answered the call to support Cairns Festival this year and into the future. Like us, they see the value of creativity, community engagement, and the coming together around cultural expression. We are grateful to each and every one of them for being a part of our 20 August to 5 September celebration. 

If you are a business owner or arts patron who might like to keep Cairns Festival growing, please contact us to learn about opportunities for the 2011 Festival. Throughout our history, Cairns Festival has served as our community's platform for self-expression and cultural dialogue. With your help, we intend to continue this tradition and find a few more ways to connect artists and audiences here in Tropical North Queensland.  

To discuss sponsorship opportunities and new partnership ideas, please contact Festival Producer, Eric Holowacz on 07 4044 3086 or e.holowacz@cairns.qld.gov.au

THE 2010 CAIRNS FESTIVAL IS PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY