The Cook government is being urged to reconsider its approach to arts funding and save the Perth International Cabaret Festival.
This week the festival announced it would not be staging it’s 2025 program, and the organisation would be wound up. The team behind the festival drew attention to difficulty in securing ongoing funding to run the organsiation.
Now a petition has been launched by audience members who loved the annual festival urging Premier Roger Cook to reconsider the decision to not fund the festival.
“The PICF was more than just a festival, it was a symbol of what Western Australia could achieve when artistic vision, community support, and professional excellence aligned. From its founding in 2019, it rapidly grew into a cornerstone of WA’s winter arts calendar, delivering performances that inspired, challenged, and united people from all walks of life.” the petitioners argue.
Closure of the Cabaret Festival came just a day after Propel Youth Arts announced they were shutting down
News of the demise of the cabaret festival on Tuesday, came one day after the Propel Youth Arts Festival announced its closure. A representative for new Creative Industries Minister Simone McGurk noted that neither organisation had developed a viable business model.
Since the news of the festival’s demise was first published at OUTinPerth readers have contacted us questioning how the state government can be putting forward multi-million dollar proposals for new sports and racing initiatives, but unable to support existing arts organisations.
Arts professional have also contacted us highlighting other well funded film and arts festivals that do bring in as much engagement and financial impact as the Perth International Cabaret Festival.
Multiple arts professionals and performers have highlighted that other key arts events in Perth are structured in a way that performers run the risk of not making any money, while the Cabaret Festival had always valued and paid the performers up front.
Artist Tomás Ford was one of the people signing the petition noting that the team behind the festival had spent years building and developing the event to a point where it was getting national and international recognition.
“Working in the arts in Western Australia is brutally hard, even in the best of times. We live in a state with healthy coffers, yet our cultural life is treated like an afterthought. If not an outright inconvenience. Letting a festival like Perth International Cabaret Festival die on the vine is staggering.” Ford said.
Perth International Cabaret Festival highlight that most of their government funding was returned to the government via venue hire
The organisers of the Perth International Cabaret Festival have bristled at the suggestion from the Ministers Office that despite the festival receiving $500,000 in government funding since 2020 they’d failed to create a viable event.
They highlight that around 70 per cent of the funding they receive is automatically returned to government coffers via venue hire of His Majesty’s Theatre, and that amount is a “tiny drop in the ocean” of the costs of running a festival.
Like many arts organsiations the Perth International Cabaret Festival have struggled with a government funding model that funds individual events, but does not allow for funds to be used to running of core operations.
Tania Hudson, CEO of the Chamber of Arts and Culture Western Australia, spoke to OUTinPerth this week and said there needed to be a shift beyond event based funding.
““The arts and culture sector continues to face funding challenges, particularly in terms of core or operational funding of a sustainable nature. Achieving diversity of funding sources and revenue streams, sourced from across the public and private sectors, is key, but that is extremely challenging in an environment with so many competing needs.” Hudson said.
“Organisations are needing to be creative and clever in how they design sustainable operating models, although sometimes that is not enough. Funders must be prepared to provide long-term support and not just one-off or short-term program funding.” Hudson said.
Alongside bringing people into the city on cold winter nights, the festival was also developing an impressive track record in hosting world premieres of new works and showcasing works by local artists. After appearing at the Perth International Cabaret Festival many of these works would go on to be performed interstate and internationally.
The 2024 festival included In These Shoes the cabaret debut of Glynis Traill-Nash, new worlds from local artists Penny Shaw, Joe Louis Robinson, and Brendan Hansen.
In its five year run over 300 artists performed at the festival and 60% of them were from Western Australia. While the festival injected over $4 million directly into the WA economy with an estimated $10 million total economic impact.
The festival also exceeded the Department of Local Government, Sports and Cultural Industries Culture Counts targets, while maintaining a 98% audience return rate annually.
The festival also helped the hospitality sector, with 5-10% attendees from outside Perth with an average 3-night accommodation stay.
