Can a public arts event be too successful?

Everyone wants big audiences but bigger isn't always better at public art events as Perth Festival, Vivid Sydney and White Night Melbourne all know.
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White Night crowds in 2014; image via www.theurbanlist.com

Perth has a population of just 1.9 million but last weekend almost three quarters of them – 1.4 million people –  turned out over three days to see French company Royal de Luxe’s The Giants. That is almost as many as the 1.43 million who turned out to Vivid Sydney over 18 days last year and the larger city has struggled to control the crowds at Vivid.

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts