About Cairns Festival
Now in its 49th year, Cairns Festival is the Far North region's annual celebration of who we are—our culture, our unique tropical lifestyle, and landscapes, an incredible creative community, and a special fusion of Indigenous, Asian, European, and South Pacific cultures. Held over seventeen days, the season comprises music, dance, theatre, film, literary arts, and new collaborations built on a foundation of local identity. It is a festival that can only happen in Tropical North Queensland.
The Festival is funded and managed by Cairns Regional Council, and is situated within its Cultural Services & Facilities branch. Externally, the Festival is also resourced by several dozen generous corporate citizens and community leaders who have joined us in advancing a bold, creative mission. Guided by a Festivals Advisory Committee chaired by Mayor Val Schier, and run by a small professional team, Cairns Festival works clossly with other parts of the Council and the greater community to identify new forms of cultural representation. Our partners include Tanks Arts Centre, the Esplanade, Civic Theatre, Arts Nexus, Umi Arts, Cairns Regional Gallery, Arts Queensland, and many others. Together, we invite everyone—residents and visitors—to join us as we continue to find new ways to explore who we are as a community and the unique sense of place we have.
Most importantly, Cairns Festival is made possible by thousands of creative people—from the parade participants and locally produced events to the international musicians and visiting artists in residence. Without them, we would have no events, no program, no creative spark. Each and every person involved in Cairns Festival brings something special to our stages, to our streets, and to our lives. They contribute their human spirit and unlimited creativity and ensure that our annual celebration is bold, meaningful, and relevant. Their presence, quite simply, is what gives Cairns Festival its soul. And that too is what sets our community's gathering apart form all the other festivals around the world.
OUR VISION
The Festival Cairns vision is simple: to deliver a vibrant, progressive and highly collaborative arts festival unlike any other in the world. We strive to reflect and engage the community; gain regional and national recognition for our local cultural identity; tell our unique stories and celebrate the distinctive, tropical lifestyle of the Far North. And we work to produce an annual cultural celebration that means something to the residents of Cairns region, that impacts our lives, and is available nowhere else on earth.
There are hundreds of annual festivals all over Australia, and many of them depend on the same formula: present a range of performers, invite audiences to experience them, applaud at the end, maybe dance a little in the middle, ponder what it all means. There's nothing wrong with this tried and true event-based approach, but Cairns Festival wants to do more for our creative identity. We have set out to build a different kind of arts festival.
Starting this year, we will introduce a few new ways to engage local creative people, support the unbridled creative process, and advance bold untested collaborations. Our team is now working to develop creative connections and ideas that go beneath the surface to reveal a unique cultural identity and sense of place. If we do it right, Cairns Festival will provide a bit of innovation to the standard event/audience-based model. And if we do it really right, we'll give added meaning to people's lives and a sense of wonder to what goes on around us.
OUR TEAM
