High Steaks: Brisbane Festival’s Louise Bezzina on the value of hard work
She’s the youngest, longest-serving and only female and Queensland director of the hugely popular Brisbane Festival. This is her workday. WELCOME TO HIGH STEAKS
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She’s the longest serving director of the hugely popular Brisbane Festival. She also happens to be the youngest, the only female and only Queenslander.
By her own admission, Louise Bezzina doesn’t come from theatre royalty or a high arts family, rather a working-class migrant background from the regions.
Hardly the pedigree, some might say, to jag one of the most coveted cultural roles in the big smoke.
But at 43 and with five Brisbane Festivals under her belt, the eldest daughter of a Maltese-born hairdresser and a bank teller from Mackay has proved herself worthy.
And she’s not done yet.
“I’m not what you would think on paper would make an artistic director – I’m not – but then I’ve worked hard and am committed and passionate, I feel it’s my role,” she says, as we settle into lunch at Duck Fat, a French restaurant in Newstead.
The location is not far from Bezzina’s office in Fortitude Valley, because time is something she doesn’t have in abundance.
This is a woman who gets up at 4.30am to squeeze everything in. She’s gone from a natural night owl to rising before the kookaburras.
“It was really hard, but I had to change my life,” says Bezzina, now a single mum to Connor, 11, and Isabella, 8, after splitting from her photographer husband John Gass.
Moving into a townhouse in Wooloowin, in Brisbane’s north, last year, Bezzina implemented a rigorous schedule.
First up is exercise, 30 minutes on the treadmill and pilates. Tick.
Next, a solid two hours of work. Tick.
“I’m responding to emails, reading pitches (only “a very small percentage” pass muster) and writing proposals for sponsors and donors,” she says.
At 7.30am, she wakes the kids. Tick.
“I leave them until the very last minute because I need as much time on my own (as possible), so what it means is they don’t have to do anything other than get themselves dressed and have breakfast, but it’s really down to the wire.
“Every now and then, they’ll wake up early, and I’m like, no, no, no, you can’t, no, no, no, you can’t.”
The Brisbane Festival is a $20m extravaganza that runs every September and delivers a sizeable $53m economic impact.
But as Bezzina – who works alongside dear friend Charlie Cush, the festival’s accomplished CEO – admits, “you’re only as good as your last festival”.
“We review our audience size every year, our box office (revenue), we are rigorous in our evaluation, and we are now the largest international arts festival in Australia … and very proud of that,” she says.
“Every year it’s about finding the right box office thing, and with experience, you learn more and get a sense of what will succeed.
“You have to be aware of your city, and not try to make it something it is not.”
Last year’s centrepiece was Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show, which Bezzina saw in Japan before approaching the producer directly to lock it away for Brisbane.
She calls it racy. Critics called it “saucy as hell”, and then some.
Bezzina’s parents – Louis, 73, and Joan, 68 – whom she describes as her “greatest champions”, left at interval.
“My parents are conservative people; I did warn them,” she smiles.
Bezzina’s debut Brisbane Festival was in 2020.
Coming on board in mid-2019 after eight years as the founder, artistic director and CEO of the Gold Coast Bleach Festival, and being a producer with Brisbane Festival in her 20s, Bezzina had big ideas.
A pandemic wasn’t one of them.
But she knuckled down and refused to deny a city wearied by lockdowns and restrictions its festival.
“It was the Covid year, but we were the first festival in the world to go ahead with live performances, taking an entourage of performers, stages and trailers to 190 suburbs, giving people free concerts from the likes of Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Opera Queensland and Kate Miller-Heidke.
“We were the first back in the QPAC Playhouse for (contemporary circus outfit) Circa – we broke new ground and I was determined we couldn’t have a year off.”
Bezzina hasn’t stopped since.
“It’s a hamster wheel – you’ve got October and November to get back in front of everybody; December, everyone is busy with Christmas; January, everyone is asleep; then it’s February and I’ve got to lock and load this baby, it’s boom, boom, boom,” she says.
Every festival has a theme and Bezzina drops a hint on what we can expect in 2025.
“The city is a stage, including our bridges such as the Kurilpa, Goodwill, Neville Bonner, Victoria, there’s a canvas.”
The Bridges of Brisbane, I suggest?
“You’re on the right track,” she smiles.
Bezzina is contracted until 2026 – which will be her seventh festival, something unmatched by predecessors David Berthold, Noel Staunton, Lyndon Terracini and the late Tony Gould.
“This was always my dream job, which is why it’s hard to think beyond it,” she says.
”I’m not doing this to audition for something else … but I can’t be here forever, and it’s not right to be here forever; there has to be an injection of new ideas.”
If 2026 is a wrap for Bezzina, that leaves only a handful of years until the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Could this dynamo, who stared down a pandemic and embraces innovation, be the incoming executive producer of the opening and closing ceremonies?
“Brisbane is bursting with so many things into the future,” she says.
“I just want to be part of a generation of doers, 2032 is seven years away, but we’ll see.”
On the hot topic of the Games, Bezzina says the arts community is “engine ready”.
“I’m trying to build a program already that is an indication of what a cultural Olympiad would look like,” she says.
“There is an opportunity to integrate culture across Brisbane for audiences to get greater insight into who we are, highlighting our beautiful landmarks and public spaces,” she says, citing the activations around Melbourne during the Australian Open in January.
“We’re the soft infrastructure ready to go; we’re a festival that knows how to safely shut down the city for Riverfire, we’ve done drones for the first time.
“Brisbane won’t have the budget of Paris, but it’s really important there are works of scale that highlight the city’s personality – engaging, big, shiny moments that have cut through.
“I’d love to see a legacy that leaves our arts community known globally for being absolute superstars, and they are, but how do we really, really amplify that?”
Asked if there has been too much politicking and not enough progress, Bezzina says “absolutely”.
“But I’m not a person to sit around and whinge – I just want to get in and do it.”
She credits her family for her work ethic.
“I grew up with parents who worked their guts out to do everything for us, and I really admire that,” says Bezzina, whose younger sister Natalie works for the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Melbourne.
After graduating from St Patrick’s College Mackay, Bezzina moved to Brisbane at age 17 and thereafter gained a Bachelor of Applied Theatre, Performing Arts, from Griffith University.
In 2023 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the same institution for her commitment and services to the arts in Queensland.
Part of the creative team behind Festival 2018 for the Commonwealth Games, Bezzina also sits on the board of Experience Gold Coast, at the invitation of mayor Tom Tate, who once said she was only “on loan” to Brisbane.
But ask Bezzina, and she’s not going anywhere, just yet.
“I love this job and I’ve received lots of wonderful support – people like (art dealer) Philip Bacon, he is the most remarkable mentor, and (philanthropists) Tim and Gina Fairfax, literally game changers for Brisbane Festival,” she says.
“If I’m going to give an insight more into me as a person, my workaholic personality has taken its toll on certain things, but the only thing that has ever, and this is really sensitive, stopped me in my tracks, honestly, is my children.
“If I didn’t have them, I’d work 24/7.
“You know how some people talk about work-life balance, that your work doesn’t define you? Well, my children define me but my work does too, so what is Louise Bezzina outside of this? I don’t really know.”
kylie.lang@news.com.au
RATING
Duck Fat restaurant, Newstead
Snapper in papillote
8/10
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