{"id":83337,"date":"2026-08-30T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/83337\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T10:56:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:56:00","slug":"high-steaks-ebony-bott-on-brisbane-festival-family-and-her-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/83337\/","title":{"rendered":"High Steaks: Ebony Bott on Brisbane Festival, family and her \u2018why\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not because she wasn\u2019t qualified for the most coveted job in the city\u2019s cultural scene but because she wasn\u2019t a Queenslander<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the hardest things when you come to a new place and curate a program is that people won\u2019t let you in and share,\u201d Bott says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can be a tendency of \u2018who is she?\u2019 but I haven\u2019t found that at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has been so kind, and my family have said they\u2019ve never seen me so happy. It makes me emotional but my sister said to me the other day, \u2018You never talked like this when you were in Sydney\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bott, who left the Opera House after five years as head of contemporary performance, took over from Mackay-raised Louise Bezzina in October 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n

She says the festival team has embraced the change, including CEO Charlie Cush.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharlie\u2019s incredible and just said, \u2018Yep, new chapter, here we go\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

And go they are. The 2026 festival kicks off this Friday and runs until September 26.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s largest international arts festival \u2013 more than two million people attended at least one of its 1300 performances last year and it delivers $64.8m to the economy \u2013 is down to the wire with final site checks and an excitement Bott describes as palpable.<\/p>\n

South Bank will be turned into Festival Village, and it\u2019s her hope all of Brisbane will descend on the riverfront site as they did years ago during World Expo \u201888.<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s also looking forward \u2013 to another not insignificant event called the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur 2028 festival begins a week after the Paralympics finish in LA and that\u2019s when the torch will be handed over so we\u2019re going to make sure we really go, \u2018Come on world, we\u2019re waiting for you\u2019,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yes, I already have some great projects underway; I never stop thinking of what\u2019s next.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Games hold a special place in Bott\u2019s heart, especially because of her mother Eileen, who died of breast cancer at age 61 in her hometown of Perth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 29 when Mum passed, but it was only in my 20s that I really got to know her,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Bott is one of 10 children \u2013 she\u2019s number seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, you can imagine with that many kids in the house you don\u2019t get to develop a really close bond with a parent; the other side of that is you become very close to your siblings,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I only scratched the surface of who Mum was, but I can tell you she was really adventurous, and she wanted all of her children to have adventurous lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cMum loved the Olympics, loved them. She went to the 2000 Sydney Olympics \u2013 by herself because she couldn\u2019t find anyone to go with her \u2013 and she chose all her outfits, green and gold; she just loved being an Australian.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she were alive today, she\u2019d be saying, \u2018I\u2019m coming over and moving into your spare room\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bott\u2019s father Roland is 82 and a retired doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis vocation was caring; he was an incredible GP,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing when you go back to Perth and go to a cafe, there\u2019ll just be generations of people coming up to say hi to Dad; he also was the doctor to the Archbishop of Perth and we all met the Pope (John Paul II) when I was 10.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bott, who turned 50 in June, describes her family as \u201cexceptionally close\u201d and she loves being an aunty to her 17 nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve absolutely made peace with not being able to have children of my own,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll my (five) sisters had their babies in their forties but also, to be honest, I\u2019d always been very ambivalent about children. I was not quite sure if I wanted them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s story is different but when I found out I couldn\u2019t have kids I pivoted pretty quickly and asked myself, \u2018How can I feel like I\u2019ve got something to contribute?\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made me really conscious about how I spend my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In August 2024, when contemplating her next move and finding Sydney \u201ca bit tricky to make friends\u201d, Bott engaged a leadership coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe got me to do a lot of working out my \u2018why\u2019 \u2013 why I do what I do \u2013 and it was harder than you think,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe made me answer very specific questions like, \u2018When was the last time in your job you felt like everything was zinging?\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat emerged was that I loved it when the team had a win \u2013 celebrating getting a contract signed, landing an artist, having a great board meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where my zingy moments come from, and she said to me, \u2018Have you thought about running a festival?\u2019, and I was like, \u2018Oh, no, I\u2019m not a front person\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few months into 2025 the Brisbane Festival role opened up and Bott decided to push herself out of her comfort zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum\u2019s best friend, who\u2019s 90, called me on my birthday and said she couldn\u2019t believe what I was doing now because I was so quiet as a child,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I can honestly say I\u2019m exactly where I should be in the world. Before I applied, I came up to Brisbane and spent three days just walking around, and I slowly fell in love with the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing that struck Bott \u2013 who\u2019s also worked in Adelaide as its cabaret festival\u2019s creative director \u2013 was how quickly Brisbane came alive after dawn.<\/p>\n

Herself an early riser \u2013 she\u2019s up at 5.30am and off to pilates most mornings \u2013 she immediately felt energised by the activity around her.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are not just talking about the night-time economy anymore but also the sunrise economy, and the money generated in Brisbane between 5am-8am is higher than any other capital city,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Responding accordingly, Bott has introduced a range of morning activities as part of this year\u2019s festival, from musical mantras with Camerata (Queensland\u2019s chamber orchestra) to Daybreaker, an alcohol-free dance party that has its origins in New York.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s pumped about the whole program, themed Switch On, Light Up, Come Alive, and the global exposure it gives to local artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe role of an international arts festival is to inject a local arts ecology with artists from around the world, but also it\u2019s about reciprocity \u2013 Brisbane artists meeting overseas artists and what that does for them going forward,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Among the incoming productions are Escape, a blend of dance, acrobatics and creative movement by Los Angeles\u2019 Diavolo Architecture in Motion, Dead as Dodo by New York and Oslo puppetry company Wakka Wakka, the Fijian Flying Circus, and London\u2019s stage sensation The Choir of Man.<\/p>\n

Bott has also tapped Brisbane\u2019s pop-rock duo The Veronicas to do a soundtrack for Bright Nights by ANZ, a free nightly water, light and sound spectacle, and of course there\u2019s Riverfire, where fireworks paint the town every colour of the rainbow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be stunning; the village is the beating heart of the festival, and I have this belief that when you can visibly see a festival it pumps blood all around the city,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

While Bott describes the past year as \u201ca baptism by fire\u201d with a \u201cvery fast cycle of programming\u201d, she\u2019s grateful for the city\u2019s open arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so blessed \u2013 Lou Bezzina (now artistic director and CEO of Brisbane Powerhouse) has been so warm and helped me settle in,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly on I was introduced to Kieran Swan (Metro Arts CEO) and Dan Evans (Queensland Theatre artistic director) and we\u2019re all new in our roles and have become good friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhilip Bacon (art dealer and deputy chair of Brisbane Festival) has been amazing, telling me who I should get to know, and (live entertainment impresario) Harvey Lister is a powerhouse who said straight away, \u2018What do you want to do Ebony, how can we help?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just don\u2019t get that support and generosity of spirit anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ebony Bott, artistic director, Brisbane Festival<\/p>\n

Les Bubbles, 144 Wickham St, Fortitude Valley<\/p>\n

Black Angus Steak Frites<\/p>\n

Rating: 7\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not because she wasn\u2019t qualified for the most coveted job in the city\u2019s cultural scene but because 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