Festival Lab
Festival Lab is Perth Festival’s intensive development program for emerging artists and creative practitioners
The Festival Lab is an annual program that encourages participants to deeply engage with the Perth Festival program. This is an opportunity for emerging artists from any discipline to engage with other emerging artists, experience the breadth of Festival offerings together, and reflect on your artistic practice with an Arts Leader as your guide and Navigator.
Each year, the Lab will encourage cross-border collaboration and convergence by providing space for artists to explore connections with peers throughout the Asia-Pacific and Aotearoa region. The Festival Lab program and cohort will be guided by a Lab Navigator from the arts industry.
The Lab cohort will participate in critical discussion and workshops, meet visiting artists, producers, programmers and Festival staff, and forge new relationships with other practitioners in this intensive program.
The curated program offers a space for inquiry and connection – an open invitation to learn and engage with no outcome expectations.
Festival Lab 2027
Applications are now open for Perth Festival Lab 2027.
Festival Lab is Perth Festival’s intensive development program for emerging artists and creative practitioners.
From 5 - 20 February 2027, participants will experience events and shows at Perth Festival as a cohort, take part in workshops and critical conversations, meet visiting artists, producers, programmers and Festival staff, and reflect on their own creative practice.
Guided by Festival Lab Navigator Dolina Wehipeihana, Co-Director of Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, the Lab creates space for inquiry, exchange and connection across artforms and cultures.
There is no requirement to create a new work or produce a particular artistic outcome. Festival Lab is an opportunity to step outside your day-to-day practice, encounter new ideas, experience the Festival together and build relationships with other artists and practitioners.
Key dates
Applications close: 11.59pm AWST Sunday 25 October 2026
Applicants notified: mid-November 2026
Festival Lab will take place from 5 - 20 February 2027
If you need assistance completing the form, require another way to apply or would like to discuss access requirements, please contact:
Jamie McGleave
Community Engagement Manager
Perth Festival
[email protected]
Festival Lab is designed for emerging artists and creative practitioners working across artforms and disciplines.
We’re looking for people who are:
In the first 5 years of their practice
interested in questioning and developing their creative practice
open to exchanging ideas with artists from different disciplines and backgrounds
interested in engaging deeply with an international arts festival
able to contribute generously to a collaborative cohort
available to participate fully in the program.
For 2027, Festival Lab will bring together practitioners from Western Australia and our wider region, including opportunities supported through Perth Festival’s Asia-Pacific and Aotearoa partnerships.
Western Australian artists and creative practitioners;
artists from participating Asia-Pacific Festivals Connection networks; and
two emerging Māori artists from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Festival Lab runs from 5 - 20 February 2027.
It is an intensive full-time commitment, with activity taking place across weekdays, evenings and weekends.
Perth Festival performances and events
workshops and facilitated discussions
meetings with visiting artists, producers and programmers
conversations with Perth Festival staff
behind-the-scenes Festival experiences
critical reflection with the Lab cohort
opportunities to build professional and artistic relationships.
Participants should expect Festival Lab to be their primary commitment during the program period.
Participants selected through Perth Festival’s Festival Lab application process will receive an AUD $1,800 participation fee for the full program, as well as access to the Festival performances, events and activities included in the Lab schedule.
Asia-Pacific participants
Two Festival Lab places are available to eligible practitioners through Perth Festival’s Asia-Pacific Festivals Connection partnerships. Accommodation support in Perth is available for these participants. Travel support is being finalised and will be confirmed before an offer is accepted.
Aotearoa participants
The 2027 cohort will also include two emerging Māori artists from Aotearoa New Zealand through a separate partner process. Fee, travel and accommodation arrangements for these participants will be confirmed through that partnership.
If travel, accommodation or other access support would affect your ability to participate, please tell us in your application. We’ll discuss available support with selected participants.
Applications will be considered in relation to:
your artistic or creative practice
why Festival Lab would be valuable to you at this point in your development
your interest in critical enquiry and exchange
what you might bring to a collaborative, multidisciplinary cohort
your availability to participate fully in Festival Lab.
You’ll also be asked to provide a short biography and 1–3 examples of recent work. You do not need to create anything new for your application.