“Suburban” sums up 2020 – the year they took shows to the people on the back of a truck during the pandemic. “Connection” best describes 2021 – when live performances, and our collective sanity, started to return. The year 2022 was “iconic” – when the date of the city’s favourite event, Riverfire, was moved to the beginning of the festival to kick off the celebration of all things art and culture.

In 2023 the festival finally went “global” again, welcoming back international artists through our reopened borders.

As for 2024? “The word that screams to me this year is ‘shiny’,” says Bezzina, 43.

“There is a sense of shininess and brightness and joy and boldness.”

Shiny like the sparkles of light that dance across the Brisbane River on a brilliant winter’s day, or the morning sun bouncing off the city’s skyscrapers, or a toddler’s rosy cheeks after a day at South Bank. Shiny like the festival’s major coup and showpiece this year – Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show.

“It’s the hero of the festival coming to Brisbane in an Australian exclusive and coming out of Paris in the year of the Paris Olympics,” Bezzina says.

“It really speaks to that global connection and tells the story of a major global fashion icon who has had such a profound impact on generations of superstars like Madonna.”

A combination of revue, pop concert and fashion show, the eccentric and provocative production celebrates the life and times of the “enfant terrible” French fashion designer.

Created in 2019, it will play at Brisbane’s South Bank Piazza after touring London, Tokyo, Munich, Lisbon, Milan and Barcelona to rave reviews.

Bringing a Queensland flavour to the show, Bezzina worked her magic to arrange a special collaboration between Gaultier and Cairns artist Grace Lillian Lee to unveil a sculptural couture costume for the Fashion Freak Show catwalk.

“Lee is an extraordinary First Nations visual artist and designer. It just makes me so happy to see her in this world of global fashion stardom and I think that says a lot about who we are as a city and a community,” Bezzina says.

A free exhibition showcasing Lee’s work, The Dream Weaver: Guardians of Grace, will also be on display at Brisbane Powerhouse during the festival.

“I had to have Grace Lillian Lee stand there on her own. It’s her first major solo exhibition and her work is just so incredibly exquisite. It’s a collection of work that she’s been building and creating for a really long time,” Bezzina says.

Another international highlight at this year’s festival is Volcano, an award-winning Irish production by acclaimed director and choreographer Luke Murphy.

The live miniseries includes four 45-minute “episodes” performed back-to-back at Brisbane Powerhouse and combines experimental theatre, contemporary dance and psychological sci-fi thriller.

“There’s a lot of reasons why I really wanted this show,” Bezzina says. “I love the whole concept of it and I love that it’s an experience that happens over four hours. It puts a range of different art forms together in this wonderful live performance that will have you on the edge of your seat, like a binge-worthy series that you would watch on television, but instead in the live form.”

Homegrown highlights at Brisbane Festival this year include the musical Big Name, No Blankets about First Peoples’ rock outfit the Warumpi Band led by founding member Sammy Tjapanangka Butcher, and a production by Restless Dance Theatre – Private View – that explores sexuality and disability.

“Big Name, No Blankets is the most wonderful production about this group of amazing young men living in the desert, making music out of instruments and then their rise to international fame,” Bezzina says.

“I’m a big fan of Restless Dance Theatre and Private View is a particularly beautiful piece. I think it’s probably their best yet. It’s cheeky, confronting and very powerful.”

Direct from Brisbane comes the world premiere stage adaptation of acclaimed Brisbane author Trent Dalton’s best-selling book Love Stories.

The highly anticipated production co-written by Dalton’s wife Fiona Franzmann, and from the same team behind the stage version of his blockbuster novel Boy Swallows Universe, will shine its light of love on audiences at the Playhouse, QPAC.

Given the cost-of-living crisis, and other less shiny things, Bezzina has been careful to ensure there are also plenty of fun and free events for all to enjoy at this year’s festival. These include the new drone show Skylore – The Rainbow Serpent, a creation story as told by traditional owner Shannon Ruska with original sound composition by Guy Webster set to light up the night sky at South Bank. There are also free performances, exhibitions, workshops, community events and much, much more.

Bezzina admits she has unfinished business with Brisbane Festival. This year was meant to be her final year as artistic director, but her contract was quietly extended for a year, and then another year, now taking her to 2026. It has allowed her to make up for the lost Covid years, build on the festival’s success and do what she came to do.

“Brisbane Festival is not for a particular part of the community that can afford to buy a ticket,” she says. “It’s for the entire community and it’s an opportunity to participate and be part of something. More than ever we need to ensure that big projects like Brisbane Festival can touch the hearts of so many people and bring people together.”

Brisbane, it’s time to shine.

Brisbane Festival runs from August 30 until September 21. More information at the official site

DIRECTOR’S TOP 5 PICKS

• Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show
• Volcano
• Big Name, No Blankets
• Private View
• The Dream Weaver: Guardians of Grace