2020 Announcement

The Melbourne International Arts Festival you have loved and supported over 34 years is about to go through an exciting change.

From 2020, we will be transforming into a bold new winter festival that celebrates Melbourne’s arts and culture, our culinary strengths and everything that makes our city tick.

Backed by the Victorian Government, the new festival will combine our creative ambition with the wide public engagement of White Night Melbourne to create an ambitious new event of scale not yet seen in Australia.

We see this is an incredibly exciting development and we look forward to working with you to bring it to life. Under this new and expanded format, we will be able to present, produce and commission more art, in more venues, to more people than ever before, operating at a scale that will genuinely transform the city.

Our local artistic community will be the beating heart of this festival, which will offer more opportunities than ever for Victoria’s extraordinary artists alongside and in collaboration with the best from around the world.

The 2020—2023 Artistic Directors are Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek.