Ten fantastic years

On May 10, 2000, the Brisbane Powerhouse first opened its doors to the public. A decade later the New Farm venue, a former power station on the east bank of the Brisbane River, celebrates its first decade of operations with a program of free entertainment on Sunday May 16.

Highlights of the day include comedy acts Charlie Pickering and Tripod, the new music ensemble and artists-in-residence Topology, the alt.rock band Regurgitator (pictured), Vulcana Women’s Circus, and for younger audiences Bananas in Pyjamas; each representative of the different programming streams which make The Powerhouse such a vital and important part of Brisbane’s arts ecology.

“You can only do so much in a day, but we’ve strived to present something of the diversity of our program, so it starts with events in the morning that are obviously aimed at kids, parents and families; and then it proceeds through the day,” explains Andrew Ross, Artistic Director of the Brisbane Powerhouse.

In its first ten years of operation, the Powerhouse has presented numerous landmark productions, including the award-winning productions lawn and Roadkill by dance company Splintergroup, Ridiculusmus’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and Nick Earls’ The True Story of Butterfish. It also hosts such landmark events as the Brisbane Queer Film Festival and the Brisbane Comedy Festival, the latter proving to be a hit with audiences since the first such festival was presented in 2009.

Today the Brisbane Powerhouse attracts in excess of 640,000 patrons each year, whereas once its crowds were much more modest. The growth in audiences at the venue can perhaps best be illustrated by annual ticket sales, which have increased from less than $100,000 in 2000/2001 to more than $3 million in 2008/2009.

“It actually took quite a while for the Powerhouse to build audiences,” says Ross, who has worked at the venue since 2003.

“The sort of programming we’re doing now we built up from about 2004 onwards, but the audiences we’re seeing now didn’t start to appear until 2005-06; and then we had quite a few changes occur to the building in 2007, it was redeveloped considerably, and the most spectacular growth has really been since then.”

A key element of the Powerhouse’s success has been its successful engagement with young adults, a key factor in which has been the venue’s physical environs, Ross continues.

“There’s almost a divide now between the kinds of spaces that are successful in getting newer, younger audiences along and the kinds that aren’t, because I think that a lot of venues have become very dependent upon what people consider to be the mainstream audience. And really they’re sort of designed and planned to offer the sort of experience that people – a certain generation and a certain class of art-goers – have demanded, or have got used to,” he says.

“There are some people who prefer not coming to the Powerhouse, for instance, because they’re more interested in how convenient the car park is than anything else about the place, but obviously they’re not the younger audience. I think the place being affordable and accessible is more important that the notion of a venue where you arrive ten minutes before the event, see the event, pre-order a drink at interval perhaps, then go straight home afterwards. I really did want the experience of the Powerhouse to be very different from that, and really set out to make it a public space so that people felt it was a space they wanted to visit and inhabit, regardless of whether they were seeing a show or not.

“It’s a place that tends to have people milling around – not all the time but a lot of the time – and we tend to do a lot of free programming. Friday evenings, Saturday afternoons, Sunday afternoons, Sunday evenings are all full of free programs, plus we also do a lot of exhibitions, and so there’s a balance of free program and ticketed events.

“I didn’t want it to be perceived as the domain of one particular subculture. I wanted it to be a meeting place of people with diverse backgrounds and tastes, and I’m hoping that’s what it’s become,” Andrew Ross concludes.

Brisbane Powerhouse is Ten Birthday Party

Sunday May 16, 10am – 8.30pm

All events free.

www.brisbanepowerhouse.org