Fighting back, the survival of the National Circus Festival

Last held in the Mullumbimby showgrounds in 2017, the National Circus Festival is making a welcome return after a five-year absence.
Children playing in a tent - The Globe - for Circus Festival

Cancelled due to Covid in 2020, then again in 2021 just as the final program was going to print, the National Circus Festival (NCF) subsequently had its festival site flooded not once, but twice, in February 2022.

These have been immensely challenging years for the NCF, and both its revival and survival has owed much to the resilience and perseverance of the local community, as well to loyal circus artists and companies and to the solid support of the wider arts community.  

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Suzannah Conway is an experienced arts administrator, having been CEO of Opera Queensland, the Brisbane Riverfestival and the Centenary of Federation celebrations for Queensland. She is a freelance arts writer and has been writing reviews and articles for over 20 years, regularly reviewing classical music, opera and musical theatre in particular for The Australian and Limelight magazine as well as other journals. Most recently she was Arts Hub's Brisbane-based Arts Feature Writer.