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Playing Australia Project Investment

Supporting performing arts tours to reach regional and remote communities across Australia.

Alphabetical Sydney: All Aboard!. Image credit: Robert Catto.

About the program

Playing Australia Project Investment supports organisations to undertake performing arts tours to reach regional and remote communities across Australia.

The program supports costs associated with touring to regional and remote areas of Australia. There is no limit on the amount that can be requested. Touring activity must be confirmed prior to seeking investment through this category.

You can find a list of the previous recipients here.

Some significant changes have been made to the program from October 2024. Please ensure you read the guidelines in full and refer to the updated FAQs before commencing your application.

Please read our updated FAQs at the bottom of this page before commencing your application.

Please speak to a member of the Artists Services team before applying.

Who can apply

Legally constituted organisations only may apply.

Who can’t apply

You can’t apply for a grant if:

  • you have an overdue grant report
  • you are an individual or a group
  • you are in receipt of Playing Australia Multi-Year Investment
  • you owe money to Creative Australia.

What you can apply for

From October 2024, changes have been made to eligible costs. Applicants may now apply for any costs they deem necessary for the completion of a successful regional tour with a confirmed itinerary.

Creative Australia acknowledges that flexibility is required when touring and supports a variety of touring models. Applicants may seek investment for alternative touring models that:

  • propose activity such as residency models with live performance outcomes or concept touring
  • present a tour that includes significant and targeted community engagement
  • present an annual touring program for single or multiple works
  • propose a digital tour.

You can apply for support towards:

  • a tour that has a confirmed itinerary
  • payment of fees and salaries for artists and touring party
  • costs associated with remounting or rehearsing a work
  • touring costs including freight, transport, accommodation and travel allowances
  • tour co-ordination
  • costs associated with reducing the environmental impact of your tour
  • costs associated with supporting the wellbeing of the touring company.

What you can’t apply for

You can’t apply for:

  • touring projects that do not have a confirmed itinerary
  • touring projects that do not include three or more locations
  • tours for which the performers and artistic personnel are not paid at award rates
  • tours of an international production
  • tours that only include capital city or metropolitan presentations
  • tours that only include presentations in schools
  • tours that have already taken place
  • tours that show a budget surplus
  • activities engaging with First Nations content, artists and communities that do not adhere to Creative Australia First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property Protocols.

 

Your application must comply with the following protocols. We may contact you to request further information during the assessment process, or if successful, as a condition of your funding.

  • Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts. All applications involving First Nations artists, communities or subject matter must adhere to these Protocols, providing evidence of this in their application and support material. More information on the First Nations Protocols is available here.
  • Commonwealth Child Safe Framework. All successful applicants are required to comply with all Australian law relating to employing or engaging people who work or volunteer with children, including working with children checks and mandatory reporting. Successful organisations who provide services directly to children, or whose funded activities involve contact with children, will additionally be required to implement the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations.

Your application will be assessed by a panel of peers. The peers will be representative of a range of areas relevant to performing arts touring, including:

  • regional audience engagement and presentation
  • performing arts production
  • tour coordination and management.

Peers will primarily refer to the information supplied in applications and support material to make their assessment. They may also consider their own engagement with the work, relevant professional experience, and advice from Creative Australia staff.

Read more about how your application is assessed.

Peers will assess your application against the following four criteria:

Equity

Peers will assess the extent to which regional/remote audiences and communities and activities are supported. They may consider:

  • The regional and remote coverage or depth of engagement proposed by the itinerary. In general, there is an expectation that the majority (at least 60%) of your touring locations will be outside of metropolitan areas
  • Evidence of your relationships and conversations with presenting partners and communities, to support the regional reach of your proposed tour.

Playing Australia in general supports touring outside of your home state/territory. If you are proposing an intrastate tour, you must provide a compelling rationale as to why this is appropriate.

Quality

Peers will assess the quality of the artistic, presentation and touring activities. They may consider:

  • The quality of the artists and the arts workers involved in the project
  • The quality of proposed touring work/s
  • The quality of the proposed community engagement activities.

Impact

Peers will assess the impact of the proposed activities for audiences and communities. They may consider:

  • Proposed impact of the performance outcome
  • Proposed impact for local artists or communities
  • Evidence of significant experiences offered to regional and remote communities, including audience attendance and participation, workshops, master classes and online/digital offerings.

Viability

Peers will assess the viability of the proposed itinerary, activities and budget.

Please note, the Playing Australia Budget is now completed within the application form, you are no longer required to complete an Excel budget template. Applicants will be expected to provide a rationale for their budget items. Peers may consider:

  • Evidence the budget is realistic and well-planned and considers potential impact for inflation on touring costs
  • The level of detail provided in the budget, to demonstrate clear breakdown of tour costs
  • Appropriate levels of support from other sources, particularly if an intrastate tour is proposed
  • Evidence of presenter confirmation for the delivery of the work in their location
  • Evidence of the home state of the proposed work
  • Evidence that the itinerary is the most efficient and logical trajectory for the tour
  • The calibre of the organisation, including demonstrated evidence of good planning, governance, and management
  • Capacity to deliver the tour
  • Evidence that the tour considers the overall health and well-being of the touring party
  • Where relevant, evidence of an environmental impact plan which may include cost benefits
  • Contingency planning and mitigation strategies (e.g. cancellations due to natural disaster; significant illness within touring company)
  • Consideration of any extenuating disruptions to the usual operating environment (e.g. effects of natural disasters or significant impacts due to inflation).

ESSENTIAL:

  1. Audited Accounts

If your investment request is above $250,000 you must provide the two most recent sets of audited accounts for your organisation, uploaded as support material.

OPTIONAL:

  1. Production excerpt
    You may submit a video or sound recording of up to five minutes of the work you plan to tour.  For companies proposing to tour works yet to be produced, a video or sound recording of a recent work is acceptable. If you are touring a music production, you can provide a sound recording. Files must be provided as a URL link.

  2. Letters of support
    Individuals, groups or organisations can write letters in support of your project. Presenters and venues may also wish to provide letters of support reflecting their commitment to the tour. A support letter should explain to the assessment panel how the project or activity will benefit the applicant, any communities involved, or the broader community.If relevant to your activity, letters of support must provide evidence of appropriate permissions and support from First Nations organisations, communities, and Elders. Please refer to the First Nations Protocols for more information. You can include up to five letters of support, submitted as a single PDF, with each letter not exceeding one A4 page.
  1. Reviews relating to the production (if applicable) Maximum 3 pages submitted as one PDF.
  2. Brief biographical information on principal personnel (if applicable) Maximum 3 pages submitted as one PDF.
Regional touring and exhibitions

Key dates

The next round closing date is:

  • Tuesday 1 October 2024, 3pm AEST for projects starting after 1 December 2024
  • Tuesday 4 March 2025, 3pm AEDT for project starting after 1 June 2025

 


Please note: To apply you must be registered in our Application Management System a minimum of two business days prior to the closing date.

Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application approximately 12 weeks after the closing date.

Contact

If you have a question, or need help with your application, please
call or email us.

Related Links

Playing Australia FAQs

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.

In touring digital presentations, applicants may seek funding for any eligible Playing Australia costs (for example, technicians’ wages, travel and accommodation to bump in/bump out, or freight for equipment). 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.

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 in general supports touring outside of your home state/territory. If you are proposing an intrastate tour, you must provide a compelling rationale as to why this is appropriate

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
  • 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. 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.

You may apply for touring costs within your home state with the provision of a compelling rationale. For example, in states and territories where local touring investment is not available or where a tour is planned for remote or very remote areas. In general, there is an expectation that Playing Australia investment will support touring activity outside the ‘home state’.

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.

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).