The Gold Coast’s Creative Boom: New Venues, Bold Visions, and a Flourishing Arts Scene
The Gold Coast’s creative industry is booming. Alongside its thriving talents come new spaces to showcase their work, fuelling a new era of artistic expression and economic growth.
The Gold Coast is filled with a bounty of creative talent, from musicians, artists and actors to those who work behind the scenes bringing theatrical and cinematic productions to life. These industries not only greatly contribute to the cultural enrichment of the Gold Coast, but its economy as well. The reported value add of creative and performance arts to the Gold Coast economy has seen positive trends over the past decade with figures reported showing an annual contribution of over $571.6 million in 2023.
The City’s cultural landscape is expected to only grow from this point onwards, with the Gold Coast investing in major developments like the new Gold Coast Civic and Music Hall, HOTA Lyric Theatre, the proposed Miami Creative Industries precinct, and Australia’s most advanced studio and production precinct proposed by major international operator Shadowbox Studios on a City-owned site at Yatala.
The Gold Coast Civic and Music Hall, which will be redeveloped on the site of the Surfers Paradise Transit Centre, aims to boost the city’s live-music scene and support local artists. Projected to open in 2027, construction will commence in mid-2025 on a venue that will boast an adaptable floor plan to allow for multiple event configurations, such as seating for approximately 700 patrons, standing room for 2000, or a cabaret-style setup with around 240 seats. This will give the venue flexibility to play host to a wide variety of shows and artists.
Since 2018, HOTA (or the Home of The Arts) has played an integral role in showcasing arts and culture on the Gold Coast, with its cinema, gallery, outdoor stage and concert lawn playing host to exhibitions, shows, festivals, workshops and community events of all kinds.
The next phase of the HOTA Project will be the delivery of a new state-of-the-art Lyric Theatre, which will host performances such as musicals, ballet, opera, comedy and live music to meet the growing demand of the Gold Coast.
The new Lyric Theatre at HOTA will be built on a similar scale to major theatres in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It is predicted that, once operational, the theatre will contribute $111 million in economic output and $56 million in value added to the local economy yearly, as well as creating 600 ongoing jobs and attracting an extra 250,000 visitors to the HOTA precinct annually.
Another large-scale project underway is the establishment of a creative industries precinct located at the City’s Miami Depot site. The project – envisioned to be similar to Brooklyn’s Navy Yards in New York City and London’s Greenwich Design District – will feature a mixture of tech, visual effects, gaming and screen businesses. The proposal for the creative hub also includes retail and residential aspects, community facilities and public realm spaces.
Legendary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s production company Bazmark has relocated its global headquarters to the site, with the team excited about the potential the precinct’s development could bring to the Gold Coast’s creative industries sector.
“We recognise there are constraints with a lack of production infrastructure on the Gold Coast. Further growth to expand studio space and supporting infrastructure and capability for the screen industry is crucial,” said Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate.
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“The Miami depot site is well-placed to provide opportunities for the community as our local screen industry continues to flourish. With one of Australia’s greatest filmmakers and his Bazmark production company located on the Gold Coast advising the City, this is a great opportunity to attract further investment in the creative industries sector and continue to create more jobs within the industry.”
As part of his own advocacy for the Gold Coast creative scene, Luhrmann relocated Bazmark’s global head office to the Gold Coast, filming his 2022 epic biopic Elvis on location there.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the Gold Coast is the perfect environment to further develop a filmmaking culture that stimulates local business and involves the whole community in the process,” Baz Luhrmann said.
