Creative State at a glance

At a glance

Value of arts, culture and creativity

• 84 per cent of Queenslanders acknowledge the significant positive impact of the arts on individuals, communities and the economy.¹
• 72 per cent of Queenslanders believe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts are an important part of Australia’s culture.²
• $715 million in estimated Queensland screen production and digital games expenditure was generated in 2024-2025.³
• The Queensland live performance industry generated $539.3 million in revenue in 2023 with 4.9 million ticketed attendances in Queensland in the same year. ⁴
• The Indigenous arts and cultural sector has the potential to be a key economic driver for Queensland cultural export and tourism experiencedevelopment.⁵

Employment

• More than 100,000 Queenslanders are employed in creative occupations including nearly 40,000 professionals working in cultural production and creative industries. ⁶
• Queensland’s creative sector is experiencing critical skills shortages including technical production, business administration and marketing skills.⁷
• d/Deaf and disabled artists and arts workers are underrepresented in the arts and cultural sector, representing less than 9 per cent of Australia’s professional arts worker population and 3 per cent of arts and cultural leadership roles.⁸

Engagement

• 98 per cent of Queenslanders engage in arts as audience members or participants and 49 per cent would like  to attend more, particularly in their local area/community.⁹
• 89 per cent of Queenslanders engage with the arts online or through a digital platform.¹⁰
• More than 6 million visits are made to Queensland Government-owned and managed cultural institutions each year. ¹¹

Cultural tourism

• Almost 3 million domestic visitors participated in an arts or heritage activity in 2022-2023. ¹²
• 1.2 million international visitors to Australia and 1.25 million domestic overnight visitors engaged with an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism experience in the year ending December 2024. ¹³

Source

1. Creative Australia (2022), National Arts Participation Data, Queensland Factsheet
2. Creative Australia (2022), National Arts Participation Data, Queensland Factsheet
3. Screen Queensland (2024) 2023-24 Financial Year Overview
4. Ernst & Young (2023) 2023 Live Performance Australia Ticket Attendance and Revenue Report
   
5. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) and Supply Nation (2024), First Nations Businesses Succeeding Internationally
6. Creative Employment by usual place of residence viewed June 2025 at https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ml.mccutcheon/viz/ CreativeTridentUREmploymentCountsStory/Creativeemployment
7. Service and Creative Skills Australia (2024), Creative Workforce Scoping Study Report
8. Hadley, Bree (2022), Disability and the Arts, Creative, and Cultural Industries in Australia. Australian Academy of the Humanities. Report for the Australian Council of Learned Academies retrieved from https://acola.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AAH-ACOLA-DSSFinal-220502_updated.pdf
9. Creative Australia (2022), National Arts Participation Data, Queensland Factsheet
10. Creative Australia (2022), National Arts Participation Data, Queensland Factsheet
11. The State of Queensland (Department of Treaty, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Communities and the Arts) Annual Report 2023–2024
12. Australian Government (Austrade) (2024) Tourism Research Australia: First Nations Tourism
13. Tourism Research Australia (2025). Longitudinal Indicators for the Visitor Economy: LIVE Framework Data. Date Accessed 26 June 2025

Last updated:

22 September 2025