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Brisbane Festival: Queensland’s hometown ‘point of difference’

6 Oct 2017
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Urbis Urbis Newsroom
6 Oct 2017

Last Saturday evening marked the grand finale of Brisbane Festival for 2017, with the spectacular display that is Sunsuper Riverfire.

Some 500,000 people filled venues and lined the banks of the Brisbane River to see aerobatic performances by the RAAF Roulettes, helicopters, a Globemaster transport, and the awe inspiring F18s. They set the scene perfectly for the eruption of Australia’s longest fireworks display.

It was of course the final act of three – once again – magical weeks. The Festival continues to go from strength to strength, and this year we witnessed record crowds and box office success. The Treasury Brisbane Arcadia at the Cultural Forecourt, Southbank drew close to 300,000 people on its own, and figures show over a million people participated in the Festival in some way.

In total there were 540 performances, 60 productions, 20 venues around inner Brisbane, five world and 11 Australian premier performance, and more than 1,400 artists from here and around the world, including those from 28 Queensland arts companies.

Urbis staff and clients were fortunate enough to attend four of these shows as ‘feature nights’ on our events calendar. We saw the light, sound and culinary delights of “Chef”; sat in the crowd-jury of the drama of “Terror”; enjoyed the acrobatic cabaret of “Fun House”; and were enthralled by the incredible voice of Megan Washington backed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. A number of our staff and kids got along to the family day, and of course attended numerous musical and theatrical performances.    

In a world of ever increasing urbanisation, and gradual homogeneity of so much of the fabric of cities, we increasingly seek to find our hometown ‘point of difference’: the ‘magic ingredient’ that will bring people to our city, make it a memorable experience and mark us as a true destination on the world map.

More and more we are seeing that it is the experiential elements of cities that are coming to the fore as the drawcard; the cultural and entertainment offer spanning concerts, sporting events, activities – and importantly, our festivals. 

In our Brisbane Festival, we truly have a world class cultural event. The contribution Brisbane Festival makes to the life and vibrancy of Brisbane over its three weeks in September is outstanding, and continues to grow and enhance our city’s offer on the world stage.

Urbis has been once again in 2017 extremely proud to sponsor the Brisbane Festival, and offer our congratulations to the Brisbane Festival Board and team, and all involved in the success of this year’s Festival.

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