Jasmine Business Directory

Arts and entertainment in Australia covers a wide field of activity, from opera and orchestral music to commercial television, popular recording, festivals, museums, galleries, theatre, dance, literature and the screen industries. The sector sits across several levels of government. The Australian Government sets national policy and runs the main funding bodies, while the states and territories operate their own cultural agencies, flagship institutions and venues. Local councils run libraries, community arts programmes and many regional galleries. This page collects organisations and resources that operate inside that structure, so a visitor can move from a national policy body to a state company to an individual practice without losing the thread.

The federal arm of the system is the Office for the Arts, which sits within the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts. The Office for the Arts administers policy, manages national collecting institutions and oversees the screen and cultural funding programmes. The principal arts investment and advisory body is Creative Australia, which was launched on 24 August 2023 after the Creative Australia Act 2023 came into force (Office for the Arts, 2023). Creative Australia replaced the body formerly known as the Australia Council for the Arts and took on a broader remit that includes music, writing and workplace standards for artists.

Creative Australia makes grant decisions at arm's length from government through peer and industry assessment. Its funding supports the creation of new work, collaborations, touring, productions, exhibitions, performances, publishing, recording and audience development. The Four Year Investment for Organisations programme provides multi-year support to a set of arts companies; the 2025 to 2028 round funded 159 organisations, up from 114 in the previous round (Creative Australia, 2024). Multi-year funding lets companies plan seasons and retain staff instead of reapplying every year, a point that comes up often in submissions to the body.

Policy direction since 2023 has been set by Revive, the national cultural policy released on 30 January 2023. Revive is a five-year plan backed by 286 million dollars in dedicated funding over four years, and it is built around five pillars: First Nations First, A Place for Every Story, Centrality of the Artist, Strong Cultural Infrastructure, and Engaging the Audience (Office for the Arts, 2023). The first pillar recognises First Nations stories at the centre of Australian arts and culture; the third treats the artist as a worker with the same entitlements as other workers. The pillars decide where money flows and which programmes get priority.

Alongside the arts funders sit the regulators and the screen agencies. The Australian Communications and Media Authority regulates broadcasting and enforces local content rules under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. Screen Australia is the federal agency for film, television and online content, and it administers production funding and the producer rebate. State screen agencies such as Screen NSW, VicScreen, Screen Queensland and the South Australian Film Corporation add their own incentives and production support. Because these bodies often co-fund a single project, a producer's path through the system is rarely a straight line, and an Australian arts and entertainment business directory that maps the agencies in one place saves a good deal of cross-referencing.

The major collecting institutions are another part of the structure. The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra holds the national art collection, the National Library of Australia holds the documentary record, and the National Film and Sound Archive preserves the screen and recorded-sound heritage. Each state capital has its own gallery, museum, library and performing arts centre. Under this layered arrangement, with national bodies sitting above state and local ones, the same artform can be supported by three or four agencies at once, which is why directories for arts and entertainment in Australia tend to be organised by both place and discipline. A business directory for Australian arts and entertainment that records which tier funds what makes this layering easier to read at a glance.

State and territory cultural agencies do much of the day-to-day work. Bodies such as Create NSW, Creative Victoria, Arts Queensland, the Department for Industry, Innovation and Science in South Australia, Creative Tasmania and the equivalent arms in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory run their own grant programmes, manage state-owned venues and set local cultural priorities. They often co-fund projects with Creative Australia, which means an artist or company may report to two or three funders for one piece of work. The split also produces variation between jurisdictions, since a programme that exists in one state may have no counterpart in another, and that uneven coverage is one reason people use directories that bring the state agencies together on a single page.

Funding is not the only public support. Tax settings, charitable status and philanthropic incentives shape how money reaches the sector. The Register of Cultural Organisations and the related deductible gift recipient rules allow approved arts bodies to receive tax-deductible donations, which accounts for much of the private giving to galleries, companies and festivals. Cultural gifts programmes encourage the donation of artworks and collections to public institutions. These mechanisms sit outside the grant system, but they have a large effect on how the sector is financed and are useful background before reading any single organisation's annual report. The bodies that administer them are listed in this web directory alongside the funders and the companies they support.

The performing arts in Australia rest on a group of flagship companies that the federal and state governments recognise as national institutions. These companies, often called the majors, carry national mainstage seasons, regional touring obligations and education programmes. Opera Australia is the largest of them and presents seasons at the Sydney Opera House and at Arts Centre Melbourne, alongside a regional touring programme and cinema and broadcast screenings (Opera Australia, 2024). The Australian Ballet, the major state theatre companies, the symphony orchestras and Bangarra Dance Theatre, the leading First Nations performing arts company, sit within the same group. Between them the majors programme several thousand performances each year across opera, ballet, classical music, contemporary dance, theatre and circus.

The Sydney Opera House is the most recognised venue in the country and one of the most distinctive buildings in the world. It is a multi-venue centre on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour and hosts more than 1,800 performances a year attended by over 1.4 million people (Sydney Opera House, 2024). Its resident companies include Opera Australia, the Sydney Theatre Company, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. The building was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2007, which is unusual for a structure completed as recently as 1973, and that listing shapes how the venue can be altered and maintained.

Live music is a large part of the entertainment economy and reaches well beyond the flagship venues. Research commissioned by APRA AMCOS and carried out by economic consultants found that the Australian music industry generated 8.78 billion dollars in revenue and contributed 2.82 billion dollars in direct gross value to the economy in 2023 to 2024, with music exports worth 975 million dollars (APRA AMCOS, 2025). Live performance accounted for the largest share of revenue at 4.83 billion dollars and supported around 12 million attendances in 2023. Those figures cover everything from stadium tours to pub gigs, and they sit behind the long-running policy argument about support for small and mid-sized venues. Many of the promoters and venues behind those attendances appear in business directories that list Australian arts and entertainment operators.

The grassroots end of the live sector has been under pressure, with venue closures, rising insurance costs and changing audience habits all cited in industry submissions. APRA AMCOS argued in evidence to a parliamentary inquiry that a venue tax offset could lift musicians' incomes by around 205 million dollars a year, add roughly 203,200 performances and support several thousand jobs across entertainment, hospitality and tourism (APRA AMCOS, 2024). Whether or not that mechanism is adopted, the visible top of the industry rests on a much larger base of small venues where performers first build audiences and earn early income.

Recorded music has grown too, driven by streaming. The Australian Recording Industry Association reported that wholesale recorded-music revenue rose 6.1 per cent to 717 million dollars in 2024, the sixth consecutive year of growth (ARIA, 2025). Subscription streaming services represented 71.0 per cent of the market, or about 509 million dollars, while the digital market as a whole reached 656 million dollars, around 91.5 per cent of the total. Vinyl continued to grow in revenue terms even as the number of units edged down, which points to collectors paying more for physical product rather than buying more of it. ARIA also publishes the national music charts and runs the annual ARIA Awards.

Audience demand for live arts is strong across the board. Creative Australia's National Arts Participation Survey found that 74 per cent of Australians attended at least one live arts event or festival in the year surveyed, equivalent to about 15.4 million people and the highest level recorded since the survey began in 2009, while 98 per cent engaged with the arts in some form (Creative Australia, 2025). The same research flagged cost as a growing barrier, with 60 per cent of respondents naming price as the main reason they did not attend more often. Festivals, ticketing agencies, presenters and touring promoters form the commercial layer that connects these audiences to the work, and many of them appear on a directory page devoted to performing arts and live entertainment in Australia.

Touring is a structural challenge in a country this size. The distances between capital cities are large, regional populations are spread thin, and a national tour can involve several promoters, multiple venues and a patchwork of state subsidies. Networks such as the state touring coordinators and dedicated regional touring programmes exist to share the cost and risk of moving productions around. For a small company, finding the right presenter network can decide whether a tour breaks even or runs at a loss, so presenter associations and touring bodies are useful entries in a curated Australian arts and entertainment directory.

Festivals are a defining feature of the Australian entertainment calendar and a large sector by themselves. Multi-artform events such as the Adelaide Festival and its companion Fringe, Vivid Sydney, the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Brisbane Festival draw large audiences and pack cultural activity into intense periods each year. Music festivals, comedy festivals, writers' festivals and First Nations events add to the calendar. These events support a chain of suppliers, including production companies, staging and sound hire firms, ticketing platforms and hospitality operators, and many of those suppliers list themselves in business directories for Australian arts and entertainment.

The workforce behind all of this is wide and often freelance. It includes performers, composers, conductors, choreographers, directors, designers, stage managers, technicians, front-of-house staff and the agents and managers who represent talent. Many people work across several artforms and several employers in a single year. Industry unions and professional associations, including the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, set pay standards and provide advocacy. The Centrality of the Artist pillar in Revive addresses how insecure this work is, and it has prompted measures aimed at fairer pay and clearer employment conditions for performers and crew.

Screen is one of the largest parts of Australian entertainment by spending. Screen Australia's annual Drama Report recorded a peak of 2.7 billion dollars spent on drama production in the country in 2024 to 2025, a 43 per cent rise on the previous year (Screen Australia, 2025). Of that figure, about 1.1 billion dollars went to Australian titles and roughly 1.3 billion dollars to international productions filming in Australia, the latter nearly triple the prior year. The lift was driven partly by a small number of high-budget features and by streaming commissions, and it shows how sensitive the sector is to a handful of large projects landing in any given year.

That mix of local and international work is shaped by tax incentives. The Australian Screen Production Incentive offers three rebates that a producer can use one at a time per project. The Producer Offset gives a 40 per cent rebate on eligible feature films and 30 per cent on other eligible formats with significant Australian content, and it is administered by Screen Australia (Screen Australia, 2024). The Location Offset, legislated at 30 per cent in July 2024, targets large-budget projects that spend at least 20 million dollars of qualifying expenditure in Australia, and it can be combined with state incentives (Office for the Arts, 2024). The post, digital and visual effects offset covers specialist work done in Australia. Between them, these rebates account for much of the international production activity that the Drama Report tracks.

Broadcasting is regulated to keep Australian voices and stories on air. The Australian Communications and Media Authority enforces content rules under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, including a requirement that commercial free-to-air broadcasters carry 55 per cent Australian content between 6 am and midnight on their primary channels, plus an annual quota of first-release Australian programming measured in points (ACMA, 2024). The points system rewards higher-budget productions and replaced earlier fixed sub-quotas for drama, documentary and children's content. The ACMA collects compliance data from licensees and audits the reported figures, and it also administers media ownership and control rules.

The public broadcasters have a distinct place in the system. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service are funded by government and operate under their own legislation instead of the commercial content quotas. The ABC provides national radio, television and online services with a charter obligation to reflect Australian identity, while SBS has a remit centred on multicultural and multilingual broadcasting. Both commission local drama, documentary and entertainment, and both are large buyers of independent production, so they appear often in business directories aimed at producers and content makers.

Streaming has reshaped the regulatory debate. Since 1 January 2021, subscription video-on-demand providers operating in Australia have had to report their investment in Australian content to the ACMA, though they have not yet faced a binding local-content production requirement of the kind that applies to free-to-air television (ACMA, 2024). The question of whether to impose firm obligations on global streaming platforms has been a live policy issue under Revive, and it sits alongside concerns that local titles can be hard to find inside large international catalogues. For audiences, this means Australian-made drama now competes for attention with vast libraries of imported content.

Beyond film and television, the digital entertainment industries have grown into a serious part of the sector. Video game development is supported by the Digital Games Tax Offset, a 30 per cent refundable rebate for eligible Australian game expenditure introduced through legislation that took effect in 2023, with several state governments adding their own studio rebates. Animation and visual effects houses take on both local projects and international work, often drawing on the same offsets that support live-action production. Podcasting, online video and independent web series add further channels for creators who work outside the traditional broadcasters, and many of these makers list their studios in business directories that cover Australian screen and digital content.

The screen and broadcasting workforce is large and specialised. It spans writers, directors, producers, camera and lighting crews, editors, sound designers, visual effects artists, animators, post-production staff and the agents who represent them. Bodies such as Ausfilm market Australia as a production destination and connect international productions with local crews and facilities, while guilds and unions represent the people who do the work. Training institutions, including the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, feed graduates into the industry. Together they sustain a deep pool of technical and creative skill behind both the local screen culture and the inbound international productions counted in the spending figures.

Studios and physical infrastructure count for as much as the workforce. Production facilities such as Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, Docklands Studios in Melbourne and the Gold Coast complexes provide the sound stages, water tanks and back-lots that large productions need, and several of these sites have expanded to meet inbound demand created by the offsets. Camera, lighting and grip hire firms, post-production houses, sound studios and casting agencies cluster around them. Because these services are concentrated in a few cities, directories that list Australian screen businesses are often organised by location, since a producer scouting facilities usually starts with a single city before comparing options elsewhere.

Distribution and exhibition connect the finished work back to the audience. Cinema chains, independent picture houses, film distributors and the streaming platforms all decide which titles reach the public and on what terms. Film festivals, including the Sydney Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival and the Adelaide Film Festival, give local and international work a launch platform and connect filmmakers with buyers and audiences. For documentary, short film and independent features in particular, the festival circuit is often the main route to recognition, so festival organisers, sales agents and distributors are common entries in a screen-focused web directory.

First Nations art and culture are central to Australian arts policy, named in the First Nations First pillar of Revive. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artistic traditions are among the oldest continuing cultural practices in the world, and they cover painting, weaving, carving, ceramics, dance, song, language and ceremony. The contemporary First Nations art market is significant in economic and cultural terms, with art-centre sales contributing an estimated 100 million dollars to the wider economy (Indigenous Art Code, 2024). Many of the most distinctive works in the national and state collections are by First Nations artists, and First Nations practice runs through every artform covered on this page.

Ethical trade is a major concern in this market because of a long history of exploitation. The Indigenous Art Code was established in 2009 to set standards for dealings between dealers and artists and to counter unfair practices (Indigenous Art Code, 2024). Buyers are advised to purchase from Code signatories, to ask how the artist is paid, and to obtain a certificate of authenticity for any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander work over 250 dollars. Community-controlled art centres typically return 60 to 70 per cent of a sale price directly to the artist, with the balance supporting community operations. For a buyer, the presence of these safeguards is a useful filter when working through a business directory of Australian arts and entertainment listings, where galleries and dealers can be sorted by location and type.

The wider visual arts sector covers commercial galleries, public galleries, artist-run spaces, art fairs and the secondary auction market. Visual art has consistently attracted one of the largest shares of arts funding; in one recent year visual art initiatives drew around 20 per cent of the arts grants allocated by the federal funding body (Statista, 2022). Major events such as the Sydney Biennale, the Melbourne Art Fair and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award bring artists, collectors and curators together. Photography, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics and craft all sit within this part of the sector, supported by a network of small businesses and not-for-profit spaces.

The national collecting institutions are the core of the country's cultural infrastructure. The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra holds the national art collection and presents both Australian and international exhibitions. The National Library of Australia maintains the documentary record of the nation, and the National Museum of Australia interprets Australian history and society. The National Film and Sound Archive preserves the country's screen and recorded-sound heritage. These bodies are funded through the Office for the Arts, and the Strong Cultural Infrastructure pillar of Revive is partly directed at maintaining their buildings, collections and digital systems. They head the entries in any web directory of Australian arts and entertainment institutions, with state and regional bodies listed beneath them.

Each state and territory maintains its own equivalents. The Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of Western Australia anchor the visual arts in their states, while state libraries and museums hold local collections and records. Regional galleries, many of them run or supported by local councils, extend public access to art well beyond the capitals. This spread means that a visitor researching galleries in a particular state or city benefits from a directory organised by location as well as by type of institution.

Museums and galleries also drive a large amount of cultural tourism. Privately funded institutions such as the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart have shown how a single venue can reshape visitor patterns for an entire city: it draws interstate and international travellers and feeds local hospitality and transport. Public institutions contribute through blockbuster exhibitions, touring shows and education programmes. Cultural tourism ties arts and entertainment to the wider visitor economy, so state governments invest in major venues and events, and galleries, museums and heritage sites appear often in business directories for arts and entertainment in Australia.

The economic weight of the whole cultural and creative field has been measured by the national statistical agency. The Australian Bureau of Statistics produced Cultural and Creative Activity Satellite Accounts that estimated the combined contribution of cultural and creative activity at tens of billions of dollars, with later departmental updates tracking growth over the decade to 2019 to 2020 across domains such as design, fashion, and literature and print media (Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research, 2022). These accounts give policymakers a way to compare the sector with other parts of the economy and to argue for investment on economic as well as cultural grounds. They also put a figure on arts and entertainment as a measurable contributor to national output and employment.

This page brings together listings and resources that relate to arts and entertainment in Australia, from national agencies and flagship companies to local galleries, studios, festivals and service providers. Because the field is so broad, it usually works best to start from the part of the sector that matches the need, whether that is a performing arts company, a screen production service, a gallery or a music business, and then narrow by state or city. Business directories for Australian arts and entertainment work best when they combine a clear discipline structure with regional detail, since the same artform is often supported by different agencies in different states.

For policy and funding questions, the primary sources are the Office for the Arts and Creative Australia, which publish current programme guidelines, eligibility rules and application dates. Producers and content makers should check Screen Australia and Ausfilm for screen funding and the production offsets, and the relevant state screen agency for local incentives. Anyone working in broadcasting or concerned with content rules should consult the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which holds the legislation, the compliance data and the media ownership registers. Going to the official bodies first avoids relying on second-hand summaries that may be out of date.

When buying art, and First Nations art in particular, the safest route is to deal with members of the Indigenous Art Code and to ask the questions the Code recommends about authenticity and artist payment. For market data, ARIA publishes recorded-music statistics and charts, APRA AMCOS publishes research on the music economy, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the responsible federal department publish the cultural and creative satellite accounts. Creative Australia's National Arts Participation Survey is the standard reference for audience behaviour and attendance trends. Web directories that list Australian arts and entertainment companies are a good starting point for finding a specific organisation, but the figures and rules behind the sector should always be checked against these authoritative publications.

Reading across the sector tends to be more useful than staying inside one part of it. A music venue relies on ticketing, hospitality and touring operators; a film draws on offsets, distributors and festivals; a gallery leans on philanthropy and the visitor economy. Much of the practical activity happens in the links between these parts, and those links are not always obvious from a single organisation's website. A directory for Australian arts and entertainment helps here because it places neighbouring activities side by side, so a user researching one part of the field can see the suppliers, partners and institutions around it.

Accessibility and regional reach come up repeatedly in current policy and are worth factoring into a search. Who can take part is shaped by the cost barrier identified in the National Arts Participation Survey, the distance between regional audiences and capital-city venues, and the uneven spread of facilities across the states. Programmes aimed at regional touring, at access for children and young people, and at low-cost or free events are designed to narrow these gaps. For anyone using this page to find an organisation, the safest step is to confirm location, eligibility and current programming directly, since coverage and conditions vary widely from one part of the country to another. Business directories that list Australian arts and entertainment providers can flag which programmes reach regional audiences, but the current detail still needs checking at the source.

A few cautions apply. Funding programmes open and close on fixed cycles, so a scheme that is open one year may be paused or revised the next. Statistics are often reported a year or more in arrears, which means the latest available figure may describe an earlier period. Organisational names change too, as the move from the Australia Council to Creative Australia shows, so an older listing may point to a body that has been renamed or merged. The reliable way to use a directory entry is as a route to the official source, not as the final word on it.

1. Australian Communications and Media Authority. (2024). Australian content in TV programs and content rules for broadcasters. ACMA
2. APRA AMCOS. (2024). Submission to the Inquiry into the Challenges and Opportunities within the Australian Live Music Industry. APRA AMCOS
3. APRA AMCOS. (2025). The Bass Line: the economic and cultural value of the Australian music industry. APRA AMCOS
4. Australian Recording Industry Association. (2025). Recorded music continues to grow in Australia: 2024 wholesale figures. ARIA
5. Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research. (2022). Cultural and Creative Activity in Australia 2010-11 to 2019-20. Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts
6. Creative Australia. (2024). 159 organisations receive four-year investment for 2025 to 2028. Creative Australia
7. Creative Australia. (2025). Creating Our Future: Results of the National Arts Participation Survey. Creative Australia
8. Indigenous Art Code. (2024). Buying Art Ethically. Indigenous Art Code Limited
9. Office for the Arts. (2023). Revive: a place for every story, a story for every place; National Cultural Policy. Australian Government
10. Office for the Arts. (2024). Australian Screen Production Incentive: Location Offset. Australian Government
11. Opera Australia. (2024). About Opera Australia. Opera Australia
12. Screen Australia. (2024). Producer Offset Guidelines. Screen Australia
13. Screen Australia. (2025). Drama Report 2024/25. Screen Australia
14. Sydney Opera House. (2024). Resident companies and annual performance program. Sydney Opera House Trust