Creative city
It’s important to support and encourage the arts and cultural activity of our city.
Why we’re doing this
Culture grows from and alongside society. Art and culture can include performing and visual arts, literature, film, new media, architecture, as well as festival and community events. Anything created for or by a particular community is important to us.
Our policy and action plan
Programs and projects
We invest at least $40 million in Sydney's cultural life each year. This includes producing free major public events like Sydney New Year's Eve and Art & About Sydney, sponsoring major festivals like Sydney Festival and the Biennale of Sydney, commissioning new public artworks and providing practical support and funding for our creative communities.
Young people aged 15 to 19 can see the best theatre, music and dance performances in Sydney for as little as $5 through membership platform Playwave. We provided $85,000 seed funding for the site, which was created by Shopfront Arts Co-op to help young people access affordable tickets to live performances.
To help enliven the city's streets, we created the creative hoardings program. The program aims to transform the visual impact of construction sites and provides opportunities for artists to showcase their work.
Our commitment to the cultural and creative life of the city isn’t only in galleries, stages, and museums, but in the informal and often unplanned ways our daily lives are enriched by the work of artists.
Learn more about the work we’re doing by reading our:
- cultural policy
- public art strategy and policy
- OPEN Sydney: Future directions for Sydney at night
- plans for the transformation of George Street.
