Brisbane Festival 2025 closed in spectacular style on Saturday night, wrapping up three weeks of celebration and marking the end of Louise Bezzina’s transformative seven-year tenure as Artistic Director.
Under Bezzina’s leadership, Brisbane Festival has grown into Australia’s largest international arts festival, bringing her rallying cry “be bold, be brave, be Brisbane” to life. This year, her vision reached its peak as the city itself became the stage – from bridges and parks to theatres and laneways – creating a citywide spectacle that captured the imagination and pride of Brisbane.
Over 23 days, audiences experienced an unprecedented scale of work. Craig & Karl’s ANZ’s Walk This Way lit up three city bridges with giant inflatable sculptures and bold flags, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. The Brisbane River itself became a theatre with Baleen Moondjan, where a cathedral of whale bones rose from a floating barge to host a powerful First Nations story. Audiences sold out the riverside grandstand while thousands more caught glimpses from the Neville Bonner Bridge, balconies, and even boats moored beside the stage.
Free outdoor experiences shattered attendance records. Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust drew more than half a million people to the riverbanks and delivered Channel Nine its highest-ever ratings for the event, with 398,000 tuning in. Skylore: Nieergoo – Spirit of the Whale filled the night sky with a drone performance that drew 100,000 spectators, while Afterglow transformed the City Botanic Gardens into a glowing wonderland of fire sculptures and candlelit art.
Beyond the spectacle, Brisbane Festival’s program stretched across the city with dazzling variety. Benjamin Millepied’s Gems, an Australian exclusive, enchanted audiences at QPAC, while GATSBY at the Green Light gave the refurbished Twelfth Night Theatre a glamorous revival. Community celebrations like the Moorooka Block Party sat alongside the adrenaline of Elements of Freestyle at Brisbane Powerhouse, the meditative Chronicles at the Thomas Dixon Centre, and an intimate reimagining of The Tivoli that brought audiences closer to the music than ever before.
In total, the festival engaged more than 2,600 arts workers across 108 productions, underscoring Bezzina’s commitment to building local capacity while elevating Brisbane on the world stage. Digital reach hit record heights too, with reels co-created with Tourism and Events Queensland and Brisbane Economic Development Agency clocking over five million views, creating what many dubbed “city envy” around Brisbane’s cultural vibrancy.
The festival’s impact was also deeply felt at home. An informal Lady Brisbane survey showed 93% of respondents wanted ANZ’s Walk This Way to remain a permanent feature of the city. Brisbane Festival Chair Anna Reynolds said Bezzina had “reshaped the city’s cultural identity” and cemented its reputation as a thriving arts destination.
Bezzina’s tenure has been marked by daring creativity and resilience, from guiding the festival through COVID to introducing unforgettable works such as Salamander by Es Devlin and Maxine Doyle, Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe and Love Stories, the Art Boat, and the community serenades.
Her final program felt like a love letter to the city – bold, joyful, and deeply connected to Brisbane’s identity. As she departs, she leaves a festival that has not only grown in scale and ambition, but one that has firmly positioned Brisbane as an emerging global arts capital on the road to the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
