Western Australia’s festival season sets the stage for a bright future
The patches of brown grass on Russell Square where the Spiegeltents recently stood are nearing green again. The bunting in the Town Hall has been crated up and put back in storage, and the magnificent stage at East Perth Power Station has been disassembled. The lights and rigging in all of the temporary venues have been bumped out, and the army of technicians, stage managers, ushers, ticket sellers, marketeers, and administrators have finally had a good night’s rest or three and moved on to their next gigs.
And the artists? Well, if they’re not already gracing stages and walls in other cities, they’re either basking in their good reviews or staring forlornly at their bank balances, all of them pondering their next assault on the wide, wonderful world of art and culture.
Done and dusted, Perth’s 2025 festival season pumped. The city came alive for seven bumper weeks. Ticket sales across the board were up on last year, and the best part of a million people engaged in one way or another with Fringe World and Perth Festival. You’d be forgiven for thinking the world at large was in great shape, Donald Trump just another failing comedian facing a raft of bad reviews.
With the best part of 700 shows behind us, it is not humanly possible to credibly select anything other than personal highlights. Even the winner of Fringe World’s True Bestie Award, Teagan R, who bought tickets to a staggering 96 performances (averaging three a day for the full Fringe month), saw less than twenty percent of what that festival had on offer. (One wonders how many Perth Festival shows she also saw?)
As for the squadron of reviewers, well, we were all too busy writing up the shows we saw to come anywhere near Teagan’s impressive record.
But then that’s the beauty of festivals: you pick your own line and follow it through as best as your time, money, and attention span allow. Sure, even with a restricted selection criteria, there will always be more shows than you can see, but you will certainly find things that expand your outlook and enrich your life. In that regard, for all their broad community engagement, festivals are always a deeply personal experience.
Fringe World this year was a substantial step up from 2024. The 577 shows attracted a total attendance just shy of half a million people. Greater attendances = increased box office = a higher return to participating artists. This year’s Fringe generated an astounding $8.34 million for artists, an increase of $1.1 mil over last year. This increase alone is the equivalent of forty percent of the annual subsidy Fringe World receives from the WA state government. That is a great testament to both the effectiveness of the Fringe as a generator of artist income and the importance of ongoing state investment in the organisation.
The awards program again proved to be a vital aspect of Fringe World.
All the award categories are significant, garnering kudos and financial reward for the winners, but the major, cross-genre awards are of particular importance. The Martin Sims (best overall show), the Blaz (best writing for original theatre), and the tour-ready awards (Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney fringes) can have a major impact on the winning artists’ careers. Not only do these awards come with a substantial financial component, but historically they have been crucial in launching national—in some cases international—careers. The Last Great Hunt theatre collective and artist Dean Misdale are but two of the previous winners who now enjoy an international profile.
Tomas Clifford, this year’s Martin Sims winner (Tomas Clifford Got Stood Up), and Camp Culture, which took out the tour-ready awards for both the Adelaide and Sydney fringes, are now poised to join them.
It is heartening for those who cherish the Perth Fringe’s deep roots in the WA arts community that, when a touring act is the overall winner in a genre category, a second award is presented to a local artist or group. This confirms the centrality of WA artists to the ongoing Fringe World ethos.
A full list of award winners can be found here.
Between the increased box office sales and these special awards, Fringe World has a great impact on the WA arts scene, possibly the greatest impact of any of the state’s arts institutions. Nonetheless, Jo Thomas, CEO of Artrage, the Fringe World parent company, would like to provide even more support to the WA community.
During COVID, Artrage introduced a special support scheme, ‘Keep On Fringing,’ that provided funds to those groups who required special help. The program, like the pandemic, has now wound down, but if a special source of funding can be found, Thomas would like to build on its legacy. The aim is to develop another scheme that enables selected, challenged artists to further reduce their risk in mounting a fringe show. The right sponsor, government or private, has yet to be found. Here’s wishing them every success in their quest.
Another important aspect of Fringe World is its annual internal review. After each festival the Artrage team takes a cold, hard look at what worked and what didn’t. This is a deep-rooted tradition going back to the Perth Fringe’s foundation some forty years ago.
Although the full review is still ongoing, last week it was announced that the Fringe World dates will be adjusted in 2026. The festival will start a week later and be concentrated into twenty-six days and four weekends.
Artists will also be encouraged to focus their seasons into fewer shows, the argument being it is better to have two or three full houses than five or six half-full ones. As well as reducing running costs, this will put the emphasis on pre-publicity. Hopefully a mechanism will be developed that enables word of mouth, always the strongest publicity for fringe shows, to quickly get around.
When asked what most impressed her about this year’s festival, Thomas identified the atmosphere in the city on the opening weekend.
“Wandering through Northbridge, I could feel the joy in the air. There were so many families out and about; people were being a bit silly and really getting into the Fringe vibe. You could feel the energy, like the city had perked up, come alive.”
Anyone who spends time in the inner city will agree.
But even so, in certain circles, the Fringe does have a slight image problem, a perception that it is all and only for laughs. When questioned what they’d seen, too many people from the serious side of the arts said that they don’t bother, as they are not into the more flamboyant kind of work. This is a great shame, as, certainly in this reviewer’s experience, that was but one part of a broad, rich, and varied program.
The Fringe blanket publicity, though, is partly responsible here with its almost complete emphasis on the single laughing face rather than the ancient double mask of comedy and tragedy—one smiling, one sad. The branding could at least acknowledge the second side. Not only would this broaden Fringe World’s potential audience, but it would further enhance the festival’s cred as a presenter of the serious arts. Who knows, it may also help draw back some of the old core support group, the founding mothers, who have drifted away in recent years.
Thomas was quick to point out that the Fringe ticketing office in the Hay Street Mall, an important innovation this year, was successful in reaching a new audience and making them aware of the range of shows in the Fringe World program. Too true.
But she also acknowledged that there is a problem for fringe theatre in that the festival does not have a strong alternative theatre venue. Plays do not present well in a Spiegeltent, while the State Theatre Centre, though an active venue for high-end productions, is beyond the reach of the risky grass-roots groups that typically constitute a fringe theatre program.
In this, the separation some years ago of the Blue Room’s Summer Nights series from Fringe World is still having an impact. There were no doubt good reasons for this parting of the ways, but it would probably be in the best interests of both organisations if they were to get back together. Summer Nights no longer gets the media attention it did when presented under the Fringe umbrella and tends generally to be subsumed by the bigger event. For many, it has vanished altogether.
But despite these issues, Fringe World is in great shape coming off the back of another successful festival. What’s more, the quality of the work—at least that covered by this reviewer—was overwhelmingly strong.
In a bygone era, many of the touring shows would have more likely appeared in Perth Festival. The Soweto Gospel Choir, winner of the Fringe Music and Musicals award, was a classic case in point. This is an indication of Fringe World’s stature now as an international showcase.
Similarly, many of the local acts—the finer jazz shows at Venue Award winner The Ellington, for instance, along with new music performances such as Ascendant Messages—would easily fit into a high-art festival program. This is a great testament to the strength of the Perth arts scene and its growth in recent decades—a growth that has in no small part been nurtured by the Perth Fringe.
On another level, with their one-week overlap, the momentum established by Fringe World carried over and set the pace for its sister event, Perth Festival. In this, the two festivals really do enhance each other and work together as a vibrant team. It is hard now to separate them.
The format of the 2025 Perth Festival marked a bigger change than any since the legendary Perth International Arts Festival in 2000, artistic director Sean Doran’s debut. Twenty-five years on, it’s time to shake things up again.
As mentioned previously in X-Press, the ground for this was established over Iain Grandage’s five-festival tenure, but incoming AD Anna Reece’s strong vision has taken the festival into new areas. Ironically perhaps, she has achieved this by going deeper into the culture and history of Perth.
The major thrust of Reece’s program was to expand the footprint of the festival. She achieved this through three key innovations: a bold and transformative environmental art project, Karla Bidi; activating old venues in a vibrant new way; and an extensive program of free public events.
Karla Bidi highlighted the ancient sites of Noongar significance along the banks of the Derbarl Yerrigan. By recreating an indigenous fire trail (the fires replaced by beacons of light), it mapped a symbolic, visually arresting pathway through the heart of the city and resonated through the festival.
For many though, it was the revitalised East Perth Power Station, dormant for forty years, and the Town Hall in its guise as The Embassy that truly defined the event.
The vivid Boorloo Contemporary building projections on the façade of the Power Station and its massive stage made the perfect setting for evening outdoor concerts and drew an audience of more than 80,000 people while the more intimate and ‘luxe’ Embassy pumped every night and evoked the vibrant society of old Perth.
Together these spaces became a home where people could “gather, hang out, and feel part of something bigger,” to quote Reece. “People were moved, inspired, and just blown away by the experience.”
The third innovation, the program of free public events, saw a substantial shift in the balance between ticketed and free events. Sixty percent of the program came at no charge to the public. This is an impressive proportion in any arts festival but especially so when compared to previous Perth Festivals.
True, large-scale public events have always been a hallmark of the festival—Highway to Hell, The Giants, and The Angels with their shedding feathers, to name but three—but these spectacles have tended to feature as the opening or closing events.
Reece’s offering was something different. Her program allowed people to “experience the Festival on their own terms—whether that was stumbling across something magical in a public space or planning a full night out.”
The sense of community created by all of these initiatives was central to Reece’s vision. “I loved seeing the ownership people took, the joy, the pride.”
She intends to take them further over the remainder of her tenure.
“This is a sprawling city of neighbourhoods, and we want to connect into those local spaces—celebrating the people, the culture, the communities, and the stories that make each area unique.”
With The Embassy and the East Perth Power Station in place for the next three years, the base is set.
Even so, when Reece and her team come to review this year’s activities in close detail, they will no doubt make some adjustments.
The Embassy was not a perfect fit for all of the music presented there; other specialist venues could perhaps be found, while for some, the East Perth Power Station was not so easily accessible. A lack of nearby parking on some key dates was an issue in this city of cars.
Beyond these innovations, though, the art itself will always be key to the festival’s success.
In recent decades, Perth has truly become a city of musicians, and the seven weeks spanning the two festivals this year was a veritable feast for those who cherish the breadth of quality performances, both local and imported. This was truly inspirational and stimulating.
For Perth Festival, music was also a catalyst that set the tone for the new venues and unified the experience for the audience.
As Reece described it, music “creates energy, emotion, and unforgettable moments. It has the unique power to transform spaces and bring people together in meaningful ways.”
The closure of Perth Concert Hall for renovations did make a dent in the usual classical offering, but the sheer standard and range of concerts across the other musical forms more than made up for it.
But music was not the only outstanding component in the festival’s performing arts regime. The theatre program contained some shining jewels, The Mahabharata, Night Night, and August: Osage County being the standouts for this reviewer, while the dance program was unexpectedly powerful.
To again quote Reece:
“We always knew the [dance] work was strong—bold, rigorous, emotionally charged—but the way audiences responded was next-level. CARCAÇA and Larsen C were heavy-hitting. They weren’t gentle, or classically entertaining in any traditional sense—they were beautiful, powerful, raw, and relentless. Being in the audience as people leapt to their feet at the end was incredible. The response was visceral.”
Unfortunately though, another traditional highlight of the festival, the Somerville film season, did not fare as well this year. Although the selection of films was excellent and included at least one premiere, twice unforeseen issues saw the venue shut for an extended period. The first was a pine tree problem (a fallen branch and the five-year cycle of pine cones); the second, a crashed server for the projector. With the momentum of the program broken, attendances were down.
But again, a diligent review should see these issues avoided in the future.
All up, Perth Festival 2025 was a successful and powerful event that made many strong statements about the state of the arts and the state of our city—both now and through its rich history. Significantly, to quote Reece one last time, it also revealed something crucial about the West Australian audiences.
“I don’t think we should underestimate what Perth is up for. There’s a real appetite here for challenging, muscular, emotionally complex work—and when you place it in the right context, the audience rises to meet it.”
In 2026, the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) is coming to Perth. Over the past four decades this major international showcase has been an important forum for Australian artists to network with their international counterparts and promote their work to visiting producers. Timed to coincide with a major arts festival (previously in Adelaide and Canberra), this is the first time it will be held in Perth. On occasions in the past, Fringe World has mounted a similar event on a smaller scale for international fringe producers.
It is unfortunate that APAM is being held in the latter half of next year’s festival season, once Fringe World has come down. Even so, it will provide an important gateway through which Perth as a whole and its arts community in particular can sell themselves to the rest of the world. No doubt the ongoing innovations of both Perth Festival and Fringe World will enhance the impact APAM will have.
In the meantime, the rest of us can look ahead to another stimulating festival season in 2026, confident that Fringe World and Perth Festival are in the strong hands of two visionary directors, Jo Thomas and Anna Reece.
Vive la Festivals!
IAN LILBURNE
Ian Lilburne was the founding director of the Artrage Festival, a previous manifestation of the Perth Fringe. He worked for the organisation from 1986 to 1994. He was also chair of the Performing Arts Centre Society, the parent company of the Blue Room, from 2002 to 2005.