We welcome national touring applications from all forms of professionally produced live performance. These can include, but are not limited to theatre, dance, circus, music, musical theatre, and opera performance. Please contact Artists Services for further information.

Creative Australia also offers the Contemporary Music Touring Program which funds tours to regional and metropolitan locations. Applicants may apply for $5000 – $50,000 of funding depending on the locations of their tour, based on the respective ARIA code rating. Tours funded through the Contemporary Music Touring Program may be limited to metropolitan locations, whereas Playing Australia tours must include regional or remote locations. Please contact Artists Services to discuss your application.

A professional production is one for which the performers and artistic personnel are paid at the appropriate recognised industry level.

To be eligible for this investment, the work/s needs to be produced by an Australian company or produced by an artist or collective of artists who are Australian citizens or have permanent resident status in Australia. The content of the work, the writer, composer or choreographer are not required to be Australian. An eligible work could also include a percentage of international performers as part of an Australian co-production.

Yes. Your itinerary can include activities that offer additional opportunities for the community to engage with the touring party or work, which reflect the engagement strategy provided in your application. Your itinerary can also include longer engagements in communities where alternative touring models are proposed.

Creative Australia will support investment for alternative models of regional and remote touring. Itineraries may reflect concepts including residency models with a live performance outcome, concept touring, or tours that place community engagement and participation as a central part of the development and touring process.

Proposals may include activity where a work is developed or re-staged with local artists or community through a residency process with visiting artists; or hybrid models which enable artistic collaboration across regions. There must be a live performance outcome resulting from the residency or collaboration.

Where relevant, tours may include a period of development working with identified local communities prior to the presentation of a touring work. Community engagement strategies should reflect your process. Supply letters of support from key community members which support this process.

If touring digital presentations, applicants may seek funding for costs relevant to the activity.  A digital tour may be presented in conjunction with, or independent of, a live performance tour.

Applications reflecting alternative touring models must consider the four assessment criteria:  Equity, Quality, Impact, Viability and respond within the application as appropriate.

Where you are proposing alternative touring models, such as slow touring, or residency models ensure the activity meets the criteria which specifies residency models with live performance outcomes, and ensure you are clear about the models proposed and where the activity will take place.

Concept touring is where the idea, process or work travels or tours, but a full touring party does not. For example, the work is re-rehearsed with artists from the community where the presentation will take place; the work then travels to another community where the process is repeated. If presenting a tour in this way please present your rationale and process for working.

In this category an eligible tour is generally understood as three or more locations outside of the home base of the proposed work. The itinerary must be confirmed and include a majority (at least 60%) of regional or remote locations. In some cases, we will consider intrastate touring activity (touring within the home state of the organisation).

Creative Australia uses the Accessibility Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) to determine the regional and remote classification for each town. The ARIA considers a range of factors, including distance to services, to group all locations in Australia into 5 ARIA Code areas. When planning your tour, refer to review ARIA codes for your tour locations available for download here via this form.

Yes, you can include metropolitan locations provided you meet the requirement that the of your itinerary includes regional and or remote locations. The purpose of the program is to support regional and remote touring so the greater proportion of the itinerary that takes place in these locations the stronger your application will be.

The ‘home state’ of the work is the state or territory in which the work was originally created or produced, or where most of the artists involved are based. Some projects might have performers based in various states or engage a tour coordinator from a different state or territory. Please discuss your proposal with an Artists Services Officer if you are unsure about the appropriate ‘home state’ for your application.

Playing Australia primarily supports touring outside of your home state/territory.  Interstate touring is defined as activity outside of your home state.

Playing Australia primarily supports touring outside of your home state/territory. Intrastate touring is defined as activity within your home state.

Playing Australia will only support intrastate touring in exceptional circumstances.

If you are requesting investment for intrastate touring, you must provide a clear and compelling argument for why Playing Australia should support this activity instead of, or in addition to, other sources of co-investment including from your state/territory funding agency.

You will need to demonstrate that there are exceptional circumstances at play, and that Playing Australia support is necessary to take your work to a specific audience in a particular context.

If you do include intrastate activity, consider the balance of intrastate and interstate touring proposed and articulate why this is not general intrastate touring.

Applications which request Playing Australia support for general intrastate touring activity without a compelling rationale are not competitive.

It is ok to include intrastate touring in the activity list to show the breadth of the whole tour but be clear if Playing Australia is not supporting this leg of the tour and where this investment is coming from.

No. Playing Australia Project Investment cannot support stand-alone touring activity within schools, aged care facilities or other non-general public settings. The live performance outcomes must be accessible to the general public. The broader itinerary of your tour may include activity within these types of venues as part of your engagement strategy.

Yes, annual programs of touring are eligible. A proposal can identify blocks of touring across the year for the same work or for a suite of works. Your application should reflect a logical, confirmed itinerary and viable budget, providing clear context for your planning.

Shorter touring blocks are a valid proposition when considering the mental health and wellbeing of artists engaged on extended tours; or may be relevant to alternative touring models being proposed.

You can use the investment for any of the following:

• Wages and fees for non-salaried artists and members of the touring party
• Costs associated with remounting a work. In your application and budget please ensure you clearly outline these costs. You should provide a viable budget and convincing rationale for the remount costs, including any impact on reduction to presenter fees
• Production costs associated with touring the work or delivering the activity
• Costs associated with touring the work including travel, accommodation and allowances at relevant industrial award rates for the touring party, and freight costs.  Base these on current prices and add a reasonable contingency to each item
• Tour coordination fees
• Activities which reduce the environmental impact of the tour. Your application should reflect a viable budget to support this approach and provide clear context for your planning, which may include a cost benefit analysis
• Wellbeing programs (for example, employment assistance programs) or other activities which provide support for the touring party whilst on tour.

The touring party is defined as the performers, crew and other personnel required to deliver the work or activity. In the application outline the members of your touring party.

This fund provides support to cover travel allowances at the rate set by the appropriate industry award plus contingency for scheduled increases. Productions that pay above the award rate or have their own certified agreement will need to find alternative sources to cover the difference.

Yes, if your organisation is not audited you can provide the two most recent sets of certified accounts that you do produce, attached as support material if your investment request is above $250,000.

These accounts should be certified by an external/independent chartered accountant.

The budget should provide a detailed breakdown where possible, of the costs associated with the proposed tour. You may also utilise the Budget notes where necessary, to ensure the following has been addressed:

• Confirmation that the touring party including cast, crew, band members etc. are paid fairly using the relevant industry awards and rates of pay (indicate which awards are being applied)
• Detailed and transparent calculations on the wages/fees/travel allowances etc. for those involved in the description field
• A breakdown of all large budget items e.g. flights, accommodation, ground transport, etc. accompanied by calculations in the description field.
• All income for the tour, and where possible, demonstration of diverse income sources
• A breakdown of the in-kind contributions that are being offered to your project. In-kind contributions are goods or services that are offered free of charge or at a discounted rate
• A breakdown of costs to provide accessibility assistance for audience members and project participants
• A breakdown of any cultural consultancy fees
• A breakdown of tour coordination costs.
• Where intrastate touring support is requested include other sources of co-investment towards this activity,  including from your state/territory funding agency.

Speak to member of the Artists Services team if you have any questions about your completing your budget.

Yes. Tours may engage dual casts or crew to support the overall health and wellbeing of the company undertaking an extended tour; for annual touring programs, and for companies who have specific support needs. Your application should reflect a viable budget to support this approach and provide clear context for your planning.

Yes, you may request costs to support accessibility needs for your tour. These may be for members of the touring party (e.g. costs associated with travel requirements) or for presenters (e.g. Auslan or Audio Description services). If requesting access costs, please provide explanatory notes in the application form as to what you are seeking costs for. Please speak to a member of the Artists Services team if you would like further advice.

The tour coordination fees support the cost of managing the tour logistics and travel bookings, providing a contribution towards those costs. The most recent updates to guidelines have removed the standard per venue contribution to tour coordination, applicants may now request a reasonable contribution towards the overall cost of coordinating the proposed tour, this may vary depending on the length and complexity of the tour. Playing Australia investment does not support core operational costs of organisations beyond tour coordination of the activity proposed.

If your tour is interrupted, for example, due to natural disasters or other external circumstances beyond your control, please contact us to discuss whether other support is available. We will work with clients on a case-by-case basis with regards to any potential support.

Clients should contact the Artists Services team as soon as possible to discuss their situation and any proposed variation request. Please note, additional support is not always possible given the budget constraints of this program.

Yes, if relevant. If your project has an environmental impact, you should provide evidence of an environmental impact plan which may include cost-benefits. Arts On Tour’s Green Touring Toolkit and Green Music Australia’s Sound Country  provides detailed information and resources for artists and arts organisations on how to mount a sustainable tour.

There was not a high demand for applications from individuals and success rates have traditionally been quite low for individual applications. We believe there is great benefit in individuals partnering with organisations to apply for Playing Australia Project Investment. Small scale tours by individuals will still be considered however under the new eligibility criteria, individuals will need to partner with a presenting or producing organisation who applies on their behalf.

Individuals may still apply to the Contemporary Music Touring Program (CMTP) for tours of music. And individuals can also apply for touring activity through Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups (APIG).