The Dustarena, a new artist-led creative precinct has opened in Outback Queensland on Koa Country, offering a performance experience only found in Winton. A durational project of this scale is a significant achievement anywhere, but no more so than in remote Australia, taking more than decade of dreaming and a national network to pull it all together.

Led by Amanda-Lyn Pearson, co-founding creator and director of The Crackup Sisters, a 2025 National Regional Arts Australia fellowship recipient, and more recently, a private aircraft pilot, the Dustarena is perhaps her most ambitious collaboration to date.

As it turns out, touring some 70,000kms a year across the country with the Crackup Sisters’ signature storytelling, circus and knockabout acrobatics, you meet a lot of people. In 2015, the Crackup Sisters bought a “little house that was about to fall over” in Winton and started sharing their plans to build a creative precinct around it. In 2019, a builder walked up to Amanda-Lyn after a show and said “I’ve seen that place. How about I give you a couple of weeks in September to rebuild it.” 

Fast forward to April 2026, and the Dustarena is now a purpose-built outdoor amphitheatre presenting a seasonal program with two shows a week. Ten years in the making, the Dustarena demonstrates a model that is artist-led, place-responsive and community-built. The Crackup Sisters’ vision has always been to have a big stage and to tell bigger stories. This case study shares an insight into how they made it happen.

The Venue & The Build

The Dustarena is a one-of-a-kind performance venue, part of the Crackup Corner, a creative precinct home to artist accommodation, the Crackup Sister’s House and the Museum of Outback Entertainers, a living archive of touring stories and performance memorabilia. The large-scale outdoor theatre has a 400 pax capacity across flat-floor seating and scaffold bleachers. The stage is an ambitious 17 metres high, built with timber trusses and double poles, with in-house sound, lighting and rigging capabilities. 

Improvisation, innovation and Outback hospitality runs through everything here. In the salvaged materials of the build, in the making of their new show, and the creative problem solving needed to make it all happen in remote Queensland. The theatre doors were gifted by the Winton’s iconic Northern Gregory Hotel.  A follow spotlight was sourced from North Queensland. The stage floor was donated from a construction company in Emerald. Telegraph poles came from somewhere near Maryborough. A digger travelled more than 1,000 kilometres to dig eight post holes before turning around and heading home again, charging only for fuel. And when Winton flooded in March 2025 and again in January 2026, community rallied to move art and equipment to higher ground.  

This spirit of community and care is felt in the Dustarena and in the Crackup Sisters’ new show, The Dusty Hour. Drawing on more than 25 years of touring and performance-making, Crackup Sisters have built a national network of creative peers, collaborators and community supporters. The Dustarena has grown from these relationships, realised with arts and tourism funding, donated materials, volunteer labour and a shared belief in the vision.

The Show & The Team

The Dustarena officially opened over ANZAC weekend on the 25th of April 2026, with The Dusty Hour premiering to a packed, town-proud audience. The Dusty Hour is a one-hour, 80’s game show style variety night bringing together musical and physical theatre, storytelling, whip cracking, comedy and circus. Here, the Crackup Sisters’ passion for the Outback, it’s characters, histories and landscapes, comes alive. 

Featuring Crackup Sisters Amanda-Lyn Pearson as ‘Dusty Spangles’ and Merlene Hut as ‘Croca Ruth’, with musical performances by Niq Reefman, the show centres spectacle and audience engagement. Circus and whip-cracking performances, including their infamous human cannon act, connect to a longer lineage of travelling tent shows and regional entertainment traditions. Young performers from the whip-cracking group, Crackup Crackers, formally opened the Dustarena, showcasing intergenerational skills sharing and bringing the next generation to centre stage.

The Dusty Hour worked with 27 people across the build and the show, including Jo-Anne Driessens on First Nations consultation and venue builders Will Crawford and Winston Williams. Costume and Set Designer Charlotte Haywood spent time in Winton researching the landscape and local stories. This resulted in giant moths, brolgas and Mitchell grass inspired characters and visuals, supported by costume makers Laura Cummins, Joanne Rapa and Auntie Glenda, with character development by Ira Seidenstien and Amanda-Lyn Pearson.

Set making and fabrication was led by Edward Horne, alongside Head Rigger and Maker Helen Clifford, with Dave Stretton on props. Creative Director and Choreographer Leigh-Anne Vizer worked alongside Guest Creative Director Celia White to shape the show’s physical language, with Producer Theresa Famularo supporting the opening season. Macrosphere donated lighting and technicians to get the Dustarena up to spec. Townsville based lighting designer, Yoshie Kenny spent considerable time working with The Crackup Sisters’ performing artists to up skill them in QLab, lighting and sound management that they now take on as part of their bi-weekly performance drills. 

Artist Opportunities

The Dustarena is Outback Queensland’s new home for contemporary performance, artistic exchange, experimentation, creative development and touring works. The Dusty Hour is a collaborative and evolving format that can hold multiple performance forms, designed as an open platform for visiting artists. 

The precinct offers opportunities for artists to stay, develop work over time and embed themselves within the realities and conditions of the Outback. In a regional context where touring models are often one-night only, the Dustarena encourages staying longer and developing work in response to people and place.

Funding & Partnerships

The Dustarena and Crackup Corner Arts Precinct have been supported through a combination of arts and tourism investment, with funding from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland’s Spaces and Places Fund, the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation’s Building Bush Tourism Fund, and Regional Arts Fund’s Project Grant delivered through Flying Arts.  The Dusty Hour was supported through Arts Queensland’s Queensland Arts Showcase Program fund. The precinct has also received ongoing support through Arts Queensland’s Organisations Fund 2026-2029, enabling future programming, artist engagement and continued development of the site.

Bringing in both arts and tourism investment reflects the Dustarena’s dual role in cultural infrastructure and cultural tourism. The Dustarena is already pulling in tourism partners, with bus loads dropping in for The Dusty Hour before dinner at a local pub. Visitors coming to Winton for its dark skies, landscapes, galleries, museums, festivals and events, are staying an extra night for contemporary performance. 

Visit & Support

The Dustarena’s 2026 seasonal program runs from May to October, with The Dusty Hour showing two-nights a week (Tuesdays and Saturdays). There are a few different ways to experience the Crackup Sisters’ Outback hospitality and support their work. Book a sleepover at the Crackup Sisters’ House, grab a ticket to see their show, have a guided tour of the precinct or pick up some original merch.

For tickets and more information, visit: crackupsisters.com.au

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Written by Grace Dewar, for Regional Arts Service Network in partnership with Regional Arts Australia.

Photography: Satisfaction Photos