Festival of Voices is Australia’s leading celebration of singing and the first winter festival in Tasmania, attracting audiences in early July to be enriched by voices raised together in song.

Choirs travel to Festival of Voices from across the country and the world to participate and perform. Every year the festival attracts people who want to learn new repertoire, improve their singing or just revel in the joy of group singing.

We strive to be a warm and welcoming meeting place for singers to spend concentrated time doing what they love and creating unforgettable memories together.

The Festival of Voices received Cultural Tourism Generator funding to increase interstate choir visitation to their 2023 festival. The festival team ran a targeted advertising campaign and built new relationships with interstate choirs through phone and email communication, as well as travelling to meet with choirs in person.

We learned that approaching choirs face to face is hugely beneficial to the festival. We had very high conversion rates, and additionally a lot of interest for the next couple of years. We also learned that direct contact via phone calls or informal emails are vastly more successful than more generic EDM type contact. We found that the relationships we built via direct contact were absolutely worth the additional labour. Additionally, the trips interstate have increased our visibility on the mainland immensely, and we look forward to measuring the impact of this project in the long term.

The impacts of the project will span far into the coming years of the annual Festival. The festival organisers exceeded their target of bringing 140 new choristers to the festival, registering a total of 177 new choristers for 2023, with an additional 455 in talks to register for 2024, and 352 in talks to register in 2025. It is estimated that the direct impact of these additional registrations will result in an additional 1062 nights of hotel room bookings into Hobart.

This project was funded by a Cultural Tourism Generator grant, an extension of the Cultural Tourism Accelerator Program. The Cultural Tourism Accelerator Program was an Australian Government initiative delivered through the Regional Arts Fund to help strengthen local visitor economies. The Program sought to increase tourism visitation in regional, rural, and remote communities across Australia, by providing financial support for the promotion of arts and cultural activities.