Overview
Join us as we officially kick start our 40th anniversary with a day of celebrations!
Since opening in April 1985, QPAC has welcomed more than 30 million people and has played host to more than 33,500 performances on its stages. This Saturday we’re inviting the community to mark this very special milestone with us. Featuring free live performances on the Melbourne Street Green, free QPAC Discovery Tours and exclusive giveaways, this is an event you don’t want to miss.
Birthday Celebration Program
9am: Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony
9:30am: Formalities
10am: Performance by QMusic featuring Georgie Taylor
11:10am: Performance by BEMAC featuring Menaka Thomas
11:30am: Free QPAC Discovery Tour (x2)
12pm: Free QPAC Discovery Tour (x2)
12:50pm: Performance by Omiya featuring EJ Wood
2pm: Performance by Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University featuring Shelby Johnson Quintet
Don’t forget to pick up your free coffee and cake from 9:00am to 11:00am!
Exclusive Golden Ticket Giveaway
Golden Ticket
Join us onsite at QPAC this Saturday, 12 April and go in the draw to win the ‘QPAC 40 Golden Ticket’. One lucky winner, who attends the celebrations on the day and enters their details, will walk away with a double pass to each of QPAC’s officially designed QPAC 40 events. From Ballet Preljocaj’s Swan Lake to an Out of the Box festival event of your choosing! What you can win:
- Ballet Preljocaj – double pass
- Clancestry Festival – a double pass to an event of your choosing
- Out of the Box – a double pass to an event of your choosing
- La bohème – double pass
- A Few Good Men – double pass
- The Dictionary of Lost Words – double pass
- Open Season – a double pass to a QPAC event of your choosing
- Double pass to a yet to be announced world premiere production as part of Brisbane Festival!
QPAC Discovery Tour
What to Expect
QPAC Discovery Tours are the perfect way to immerse yourself in the rich performing arts culture of Queensland.
Please note that no pre-bookings are required for tours taking place Saturday, 12 April as part of the QPAC 40 celebrations. Limited spaces available. Tour duration is 30 minutes.
Meet the Birthday Celebration Performers
QMusic
QMusic is the peak body for Queensland’s music sector, the state-wide representative voice for Queensland’s musicians, music workers, live music venues and fans.
QMusic resources and empower the businesses big and small who will create the soundtrack of Queensland’s future. From Cairns to Coolangatta, and Mackay to Mount Isa, they create artistic, social and economic outcomes for a successful contemporary music industry, with programs that include Australia’s largest music industry event, BIGSOUND; the Queensland Music Awards; Valley Fiesta; and industry development programs, scholarships and awards that assist music businesses across our state.
Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre (BEMAC)
Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre (BEMAC) is Queensland’s leading multicultural arts organisation. Recognising that culture is constantly evolving, BEMAC’s programming examines discourses and perceptions on multiculturalism, migration, and identity, leveraging the arts as a platform in which to pose difficult questions, challenge entrenched ideas, and enable change. Through public performances, exhibitions, and creative collaborations, BEMAC showcases artists who might otherwise remain outside institutional recognition, including Australian-born artists from diverse backgrounds who explore hybrid cultural influences and question national identity.
Omiya
Omiya is a DIY artist-management, record-label and booking company, with a focus on championing Asian diaspora in the Australian music scene.
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
Queensland Conservatorium is one of Australia’s leading music and performing arts schools, offering a wide variety of degree options, from classical music, jazz, opera, and popular music to musical theatre, acting, music technology and music education. Learning at the Queensland Conservatorium involves intense creative immersion, fosters a critical and inquisitive mindset and nurtures distinctive and inclusive artists, innovators, performers, producers, researchers, cultural leaders and global citizens, well-prepared to navigate and shape the 21st century.
From the Newsroom
Free community event at QPAC to kick-off celebration of 40 years this Saturday 12 April
Joy, inclusion, gathering and stories will be the hero themes for 2025 at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) as it celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
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