Pride Fest is back – the festival built not just for the LGBTQIA+ community, but for allies, audiences and artists of all backgrounds to come together in a spirit of celebration and connection.
There’s theatre, cabaret, visual art, music, comedy, drag, literature, and burlesque. Exhibitions, community partnerships, corporate team-building workshops and educational programming.
And behind the scenes is a small team pulling it altogether, led by Artistic and Programs Director Carly Fisher. Already leading the theatre department of Qtopia, she set up a pop-up proof of concept two years ago, and now Pride Fest is heading towards being a significant player on the festival circuit. Irresistible chatted to her about what’s super- fun and super- serious about Sydney’s only dedicated queer arts festival that’s getting everyone through the doors.
Sydney is lucky to have the massive Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade and events earlier in the year. Tell us about how Pride Fest sits alongside that?
It will always, I hope, be two separate things, and I think there are a few amazing things about keeping them separate. The first is that we have one of the largest queer communities in the world, certainly the largest in the country. Particularly as an ally, I can’t see why we wouldn’t be celebrating this community for more than just a couple weeks a year. Mardi Gras is in the middle of summer, and we all love to go out and party, do the march. It’s important. Now we’ve dedicated June to culture and conversation. Pride Fest is about queer stories and queer history, and for people to think about how they can stand up for this community more. We should be doing it all year round, and until that time, let’s celebrate twice!
Sydney has become such an Irresistible city in winter.
We’re the Time Out number five city in the world for culture. We’re such a thriving, particularly the independent cultural scene. It’s such a privilege that we all get such easy access. For us, June does align with International Pride Month, which is where it is because of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, and more locally because of the first 1978 Mardi Gras March in Sydney. The joke really is that Mardi Gras moved to earlier in the year because you can’t do that much fully clothed, and you can’t do winter without clothes. Sydney now also has Qtopia, the largest centre for queer history and culture in the world. We’re focusing on our footprint and our impact. We decide to create Pride Fest to be very loud and very much part of bringing Australia back into the international celebrations of Pride.
Sydney has become such an Irresistible city in winter.
We’re the Time Out number five city in the world for culture. We’re such a thriving, particularly the independent cultural scene. It’s such a privilege that we all get such easy access. For us, June does align with International Pride Month, which is where it is because of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, and more locally because of the first 1978 Mardi Gras March in Sydney. The joke really is that Mardi Gras moved to earlier in the year because you can’t do that much fully clothed, and you can’t do winter without clothes. Sydney now also has Qtopia, the largest centre for queer history and culture in the world. We’re focusing on our footprint and our impact. We decide to create Pride Fest to be very loud and very much part of bringing Australia back into the international celebrations of Pride.
The program feels fresh and with a lot of shows and talks that haven’t already been done to death on the circuit.
We try to platform new voices, and not just one subsector of the community. It’s a very diverse LBGTQIA+ community, and it’s our job to make sure that everyone here feels that this is their home and their opportunity to have their voice amplified. Five of the productions have already mentioned how unique it is to perform in a space that feels like it belongs to them. We had a fantastic bisexual comedian on the last couple of nights, and she said she is always the token woman on a comedy lineup, and here she felt like she was just meant to be here. It’s such a special place.
The space is also really welcoming to allies- how important is that to the program.
I’ve been doing regional education tours and noticing how important it is to demystify the community by making it very clear that it’s not only for people that identify as queer, it’s also for people that identify as straight, and for whom the issues are important. I hope that one day we don’t need to identify as allies, that everyone is inclusive, but we’re not there yet. I feel very privileged to be in my position in this community- a proud ally!
You were there at the beginning of Qtopia?
We started at the Bandstand, with this little pop-up exhibition as a proof of concept. That was for World Pride and when that finished and the foot traffic died down we thought about what would keep people coming back. I’m a theatre director and producer, and I said, ‘Give me four lights and some planks of wood, let me make a little stage and let’s see what happens.’ That’s how the whole live program at Qtopia Sydney started, and it just took off. Alongside our 20 exhibitions, we now have two theatre spaces in our main building, because we recognise how much it resonates for people to hear stories performed. We use them all though the year.
Pride Fest only started last year and it’s already grown so much.
I have the poster from last year up on my office wall. The program then was the same size as week one this year. We grew by 180%. I think it really reflects what the community needed. We were the only city in Australia without a dedicated curated queer arts festival, partly because we have Mardi Gras. Pride Fest feels really solid now. We are also fitting in with the timetable of fringe festivals around the world, so helping artists and performers have a sustainable income.
I have the poster from last year up on my office wall. The program then was the same size as week one this year. We grew by 180%. I think it really reflects what the community needed. We were the only city in Australia without a dedicated curated queer arts festival, partly because we have Mardi Gras. Pride Fest feels really solid now. We are also fitting in with the timetable of fringe festivals around the world, so helping artists and performers have a sustainable income.
Which are your favourite other festivals?
We’ve have a lot of people from Adelaide Fringe. I spend a lot of time there every year and I absolutely adore it. My other favourite is Edinburgh. I am such a festival lover. I’ve personally felt the enormous benefit of participating in festivals, directing and producing my own shows in Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Edinburgh, London, New York and New Zealand. There’s something I love about the chaos of festivals and the mad rush. I went to 42 shows in six days last year in Edinburgh. That’s my speed. I love the year round main stage at Qtopia as well, because I like having longer periods with artists and seeing a show develop. But stuff just happens at festivals. When everyone’s exhausted at the end of a festival, it’s a good festival.
How will you be recovering after Pride Fest?
I’ve booked a week in Fiji straight after and I invite the whole community to join me there because they should all be as tired as I am. Pride Fest has been a pure labour of love, and an extraordinary amount of work because we are a very small team – there’s six of us full time at Qtopia. We run the exhibitions, the school programs, the regional education programs, and the main stage theatre. We are working around the clock at the moment to make sure that every element continues to thrive and grow.
Is Qtopia and Pride Fest getting much in the way of international visitors? Is it on the tourist map?
We’d love to see more. Particularly for the exhibitions, we do have a high number of international visitors, especially from countries that don’t have the same rights that we have. We had two tourists from Singapore get engaged downstairs recently. They’re coming back next year to get married! I became a wedding celebrant when my dad married his husband a few years ago, so I could literally officiate! We are a community partner for Mardi Gras, and we’re the queer hub for the Sydney Fringe Festival so I think more and more people will know about us.
We’d love to see more. Particularly for the exhibitions, we do have a high number of international visitors, especially from countries that don’t have the same rights that we have. We had two tourists from Singapore get engaged downstairs recently. They’re coming back next year to get married! I became a wedding celebrant when my dad married his husband a few years ago, so I could literally officiate! We are a community partner for Mardi Gras, and we’re the queer hub for the Sydney Fringe Festival so I think more and more people will know about us.
Do you remember the first time you went to Mardi Gras?
I know I went to parades as a little kid because there’s photos of me on my Dad’s shoulders watching parades – I would have been five at the oldest. I remember going to Fair Day as well as a really young kid. The first time I ever marched though was with Qtopia last year, so I’ve now done it twice!
Around the world, rights for many people, including LGBTQIA+, are taking a step backwards. How do you see the role of Pride Fest in supporting resistance.
This year the theme of Pride Fest is Be Heard, Be Proud. It is a direct response to what is happening around the world. It is a reminder to every member of the community that we want to see exactly who you are, that you should be proud, and that your story is valued. It’s also a call to action for allies. We have to stand up for each other. Otherwise we’re going to see the same reversal of rights that is happening in the northern hemisphere and in multiple other countries. We cannot take that risk.
The recent election reminded us that we’re so lucky to live in a country that isn’t interested in divisive language. Australia collectively took a stand and said, ‘We are not willing to go down that path. We’re not willing to separate. We are only willing to unite.’ My whole life my grandparents said Australia is the lucky country. They fled Europe, and I grew up planning to live in New York. Now I truly understand what they meant. This is the lucky country. To live here right now is such a privilege. Pride Fest is a celebration of that inclusivity. It’s a very loud reminder of things like book banning that happens overseas, or rights that are being reversed, and hard fought wins that are being eradicated. We’re not in that position. We need to celebrate and also think about what is happening around the world, so we never go backwards. That’s what Qtopia Sydney is here to do.
There are a lot of eduction programs coming out of Pride Fest and Qtopia.
We really feel that our priority needs to be on future leaders. Education is one of our core principles and it is completely at our heart. I feel it is so important to remind young people how progress was made, and how hard it was. They don’t know that it was illegal just to be yourself until 1984. They don’t think about the fact that women weren’t allowed to vote, or that Indigenous members of the community were not even considered people in the census. Many young people here have grown up in a world that doesn’t segregate, so maybe it is easier to not worry about it. They might think it’s not a big deal if something is less progressive than it used to be. They might not realise we’re talking about basic inclusivity. I think a lot of what is called progressive should be considered more normal.
Do you think it’s language that needs to change?
Yes I don’t like hearing that something seems progressive, when it’s actually just inclusive. We hope that Utopia is a safe space for other affinity and minority groups because all the communities have been through a similar struggle. That’s why I love the collaborations, for example, with the Pacifica community, to specifically talk about that intersectionality of being Pacifica and also being queer. Everyone has such different experiences. We want to be conversation starters and we tell the kids that they should become change- makers. We want to inspire young people to get up and do something.
How are you rolling out programs in schools?
For the last couple of years we have been working with the New South Wales Department of Education. We have both curriculum- linked more factual streams around queer culture and legal studies and the history syllabus. We also have links to community and family studies and we’ve been asked to write programs specifically for the English and Drama curriculums. Then there’s the non-curriculum- linked programs around wellbeing, leadership and service.
We’re also going to be focussing a lot more on bullying which is on the rise. We have tended to use the term inclusion which is the positive answer to bullying, but the feeling is now the messaging needs to be more overt – students need to understand what the problem is.
What about teachers themselves?
There are new units that are being rolled out for professional development. We feel teachers are so important because for so many young students, they are the safe person that they can go and talk to. A lot of students are told to speak to the school counsellor, as though there’s something wrong, as opposed to being listened to. Sometimes kids just need to be heard. When kids disclose something like family or domestic violence situations at home, there’s a protocol for that. But that doesn’t need to be the same protocol when a kid comes out. Because that can actually be quite a celebratory time if it’s allowed to be.
After working out these teacher units, hopefully we’ll be able to start collaborating with universities on their syllabuses too.
What did you study at uni?
I have a Bachelor of arts in theatre and history and a Master’s of PR and advertising. I’ve always been obsessed with volunteering. and with working with different charities. At University of New South Wales they have a lot of not- for- profits on campus. I ended up running three of them throughout my degrees and it absolutely lit a fire.
I also knew I was always going to go into theatre, so it was just a case of working out how these two parts would meet. I started working in philanthropy at Sydney Theatre Company and then at Sydney Festival, and did a whole lot of volunteering. This job now is the ultimate blending of everything I love.
When did you catch the theatre bug?
I wanted to be in the theatre since day dot, but like every other little girl, I thought that meant being an actor. I think I went to my first show when I was about 18 or 19 months old, to which I now say to my mum, ‘Seriously, what else did you expect was going to happen to me?’ I remember seeing Wicked when I was about 10 and thinking- ‘That’s going to be what I do with the rest of my life. I don’t have to be an actor, I just have to be part of making something. It would have taken a lot of people to make this happen, so there must be lots of other roles.’
I accidentally fell into directing at uni, and then I accidentally fell into producing, and then I have continuously found incredible opportunities to grow in this industry. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Did you have a mentor or someone who inspired you?
I actually think that the people I really found my feet with were actually peers rather than mentors. UNSW has a great theatre society and my group from there are still some of my closest friends today. We sort of all worked this out together, we pushed each other. I’ve had unofficial mentors and one of them would be Kate Gaul. I really look up to her, love working with her, and value her expertise. I hope one day to do for people younger than me exactly the same things that she has done for me.
What’s your spirit animal?
I think a flamingo. Pink and can do everything on one leg that everyone else needs two legs to do. I think flamingos are multitaskers.
So back to the Pride Fest program, anything you want to shout out?
I’ll say the three headliners are probably shows that I would not miss. A Friend of Dorothy, Skank Sinatra, and Mel and Sam, with The Platonic Human Centipede. I can’t believe we have such big acts in only our second year. I’d say to people to come to as many shows as they can. They’ll get lots of praise and admiration from me, because I will be there every night, so I will recognise you if you come more than once!
The night with the 78ers is going to be very special. We’re revealing a 15 minute short documentary that we filmed. It’s going to be a real tearjerker! We could have made about 12 of these 15 minute documentaries with what the 78ers gave us. The stories are so interesting. It’ll be the first time the 78ers see the film as well!
What would you like visitors to take away from Pride Fest?
I hope they’re entertained and have a good time. We have very intentionally made sure that the programming is exceptionally diverse, so I hope people hear the kind of story they need to hear. Experience some incredible music and great singers. Engage with literature or podcasts, or our deep conversations and workshops. It’s all about getting out in the winter. Shows are selling out, the workshops are full. We had 25 school children from the Blue Mountains come up specifically to learn more about Pride. That’s what its all about.
10 years ago, if I had a visitor come to Sydney in winter, I’d be racking my brains to find things for them to do. Now if someone visits in summer, I’ll say, ‘This is nice, but you really should come back in June when all our great festivals are on.’
Pride Fest 2025
Drag, theatre, comedy, cabaret, live podcasts, exhibitions and workshops every day and night from 1 – 30 June.
