Louise Bezzina to depart Brisbane Festival and signs on with Brisbane Powerhouse

Brisbane Festival artistic director Louise Bezzina will step down from the nation’s largest arts festival following ‘remarkable’ growth period.

Outgoing Brisbane Festival artistic director Louise Bezzina. Picture: Morgan Roberts

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Brisbane Festival artistic director Louise Bezzina is to step down from her role at the nation’s largest arts festival, having driven an expansion of the event that has been described as “extraordinary” and “remarkable”.

Bezzina confirmed on Thursday that the 2025 festival, which begins in September, would be her final program before she takes up her new role as chief executive and artistic director of the Brisbane Powerhouse, a key visual art and performance hub.

She said: “Leading Brisbane Festival has been one of the great honours of my career … I’m immensely proud of what we’ve achieved, and grateful to be leaving the festival in such a strong and confident position.’’

Queensland Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek said: “Since taking the reins of Brisbane Festival, Louise has led a period of ­remarkable growth, solidifying Brisbane Festival’s place as a premier cultural event on the ­national calendar.’’

The daughter of a Maltese-born hairdresser and a bank teller, Bezzina grew up in Mackay and joined the festival in 2019.

She steered the event through the Covid pandemic and ex­panded its reach with a blend of crowd-pleasing and innovative programming.

Her 2024 program featured more than 1000 performances and drew an audience of 1.8 million, giving Brisbane Festival bragging rights as Australia’s largest international arts festival.

Bezzina’s three-week program last year included local hits such as a sold-out stage adaptation of Trent Dalton’s Love Stories and a long-awaited production of the Jonathan Mills opera Eucalyptus.

A centrepiece was the racy cabaret-meets-burlesque spectacle, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show, which featured more than 200 haute couture designs from the ageing bad boy of French fashion.

In a press release, Brisbane Festival said that “with over $53m in economic impact delivered to the city in 2024, the festival has become a key cultural and economic driver for Brisbane’’.

Brisbane Festival CEO Charlie Cush said Bezzina “has led Brisbane Festival through a period of extraordinary growth, creativity and resilience’’.

At a time when other arts companies such as Opera Australia and Queensland Ballet are struggling financially, Mr Cush said the outgoing artistic director “leaves the organisation in a position of immense strength – financially secure, artistically ambitious, and deeply embedded in the life of this city. We’re incredibly grateful for her leadership, and excited to see her continue shaping Brisbane’s cultural landscape.”

Mr Langbroek said her new role at Brisbane Powerhouse reconfirmed her commitments to the arts and would allow her to prioritise her family’s needs – she has two school-age children.

The festival will start searching for a new artistic director in May.