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behind the scenes<\/p>\n
By What does it take to curate one of the country\u2019s largest citywide festivals? Taking experience as former Head of Contemporary Performance at the Sydney Opera House, Brisbane Festival\u2019<\/a>s new Artistic Director, Ebony Bott, has built a decades-long career curating based on the question: what will make all audiences want to get involved?<\/p>\n As Brisbane Festival\u2019s opening weekend looms, I chatted to Ebony about what goes into curating a program of this scale, how she balances innovation with public appeal, and her must-see events on the schedule.<\/p>\n What actually goes into curating a citywide festival?\u00a0<\/p>\n Festivals aren\u2019t programmed in a day, but over decades of network building and consuming arts from all over the world. During Ebony\u2019s tenure at the Sydney Opera House, she learnt to consider the audiences who weren\u2019t going to the Opera House as much as those who made regular appearances. She has to create a program for everyone, not just the already arts-obsessed. So, in curating Brisbane Festival 2026, she is constantly thinking to herself at every step, \u201c\u200aHow is this tied back to local? Why is this relevant? Why would the people of Brisbane and Southeast Queensland wanna come and be part of this festival?\u201d<\/p>\n After experiencing an influx of new audiences with Choir of Man<\/a> at the Opera House, she knew it had to be in Bris Fest. The feel-good show set in a working pub will be the centrepiece of the \u200aMagic Mirrors Spiegel Tent, a production that aims to encourage new patrons into Brisbane\u2019s artistic forecourt.<\/p>\n Speaking of centrepieces, when I ask Ebony what she is most proud of about Brisbane Festival 2026, she talks about the enormous feat of creating Verso Projects\u2019 Festival Village South Ban<\/a>k. It acts as a central space, easily accessible and identifiable to the broader public, programmed from morning until night with hundreds of artists.<\/p>\n \u200a\u201dThere\u2019s something about when you come into an organisation, and you say, \u201cHey, guys, I wanna build a village. Can we do it?\u201d \u200aThat\u2019s a really big thing to do [but] everyone just helped me turn it around and pull it off, and it\u2019s literally being built right now.\u201d The idea was to give a nod towards the Olympic Village in the lead-up to Brisbane 2032, incorporating the river, the arts, and the public sphere in one tangible space. \u201cWhere does art, culture, and sport collide, and how can we have that all housed in one giant village?\u201d<\/p>\n How do you make a festival feel \u201cdistinctly Brisbane\u201d?<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI think that each festival, no matter where you are in the world, has to speak to place. \u200aAnd for me, that is about the artists that are in this place \u2013 it\u2019s about the geography and the rhythms of the city,\u201d says Ebony.<\/p>\n She gives me the example of the morning program she has curated this year. \u201cI responded this year to the fact that Brisbane is the world\u2019s earliest rising city in the world. So the festival starts at sunrise\u2026 and goes right through to the other end of the day.\u201d Ebony wanted to find a way to speak to our city of early risers that didn\u2019t just lean into wellness, but really figure out a space for an early morning event within an arts context. So, she worked with choral master Emma Dean to produce Wake Up and Sing,<\/a> where people can join in with community choirs from all across Brisbane down at South Bank. She also highlights an initiative in collaboration with the Queensland Conservatorium<\/a>, where students will take their artistic warm-ups into the public sphere for all to see.<\/p>\n \u201cSo again, it\u2019s sort of meeting those things of, again, addressing the fact that there are so many people out and about early in the morning, but also what are the artists doing at that time, or how can we turn venues inside out in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Programming for innovation vs public appeal<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWhen we think about innovation through an arts lens, it\u2019s like where do all the art forms collide? Like how do art forms continue to reinvent themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n It was a similar thought process behind curating the Bright Nights by ANZ<\/a> light show on the river. She pushed for this not only because \u201cBrisbane loves spectacle\u201d but because it\u2019s a perfect merging of technology \u2013 namely 18-metre-high jets and lasers \u2013 and the arts, with a soundtrack hand-curated by the Veronicas.<\/p>\n \u201dThat could only happen in Brisbane.\u201d Bright Night by ANZ. Image: JD Lin<\/p>\n To her, curating in a way that balances innovation with public appeal is central to programming for a place, an audience, and a period of time. Alongside large-scale spectacles, she has also made sure to highlight emerging talent by collaborating with Metro Arts on Night Moves<\/a>, \u201ca platform for emerging and more experimental art forms,\u201d that appeals to more alternative voices.<\/p>\n Curating Brisbane Festival is a careful balancing act. \u201c\u200aIt\u2019s about how each venue will always find a different audience, and that\u2019s what\u2019s really important is that you meet the audience where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s the Artistic Director\u2019s \u201cmust-see\u201d program event?<\/p>\n Though not one to openly play favourites, Ebony does let me know there is one late program inclusion that really has captured her attention and admiration. \u201c\u200aI have a feeling that when word of mouth will spread like wildfire, and there aren\u2019t many tickets to this show,\u201d she says. The show is Werewolf<\/a>, by Binge Culture. She says when she first saw the gripping production in New Zealand, \u201cover 60 minutes, I just had the best time. I sort of laughed, I sang, I screamed.\u201d<\/p>\n In saying that, the whole of Ebony\u2019s program is of true must-see status \u2013 a program certainly doing its job of speaking to a city. \u201c\u200aAcross all of our shows, across all the venues, it does feel like this festival really knows how to take over this city, and I feel so proud and so humbled to be part of it,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Discover more on the full Brisbane Festival program; click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Imagery: Supplied (Brisbane Festival)<\/p>\n Like this?<\/p>\n Read more.<\/p>\n View All Lifestyle<\/a><\/p>\n 31 August 2026<\/p>\n Take A Seat: These Are Brisbane’s Best Furniture Stores<\/p>\n Read More<\/a><\/p>\n 27 August 2026<\/p>\n The Pisces Lunar Eclipse Is Here: This Is What It Means For You<\/p>\n Read More<\/a><\/p>\n 27 August 2026<\/p>\n Yayoi Kusama\u2019s Extraordinary Legacy Lives On<\/p>\n
\n Victoria Lewis<\/a> |
\n 4th September 2026 <\/p>\n
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