Creative Tourism Grants Program

The Creative Tourism Grants Program helps the City deliver on our Culture Strategy 2023 – supporting the Gold Coast’s distinct culture. The program aims to:

• enrich our city’s visitor experience –  to surprise and delight
• expand the range of creative tourism experiences for visitors and locals
• build our city’s profile, appeal and reputation for unique creative experiences
• increase audiences for our creative cultural product
• generate local economic activity through creative and artistic projects.

Creative Tourism Grants support projects underpinned by the work of professional artists – their ideas, platforms and/or products. Projects must show they will have a reasonable tourism impact.

The City of Gold Coast has invested over $310,000 into the following projects:

Miami Marketta: SURFACE, The Miami Street Art Festival: A two-week street art festival across Miami from 3 – 17 July 2022 @surfacefestival surfacefestival.com.au

Soul Arch Media: Flotsam Surf Film & Photography Festival: a visual celebration in May exploring the creative side of surf culture via an eclectic mix of pop up short film installations, photography exhibitions, movie screenings, workshops and photo meets.

Swell Sculpture Festival: Project Dam 2022: development and planning of a creative industries public art forum at Hinze Dam designed to inspire activation of, interaction with, and visitation of public spaces and places.

Habitat Marketing: Gold Coast ART Roll: a curated ‘Art Trail’ tour on wheels providing a fresh and Instagram-worthy tourism experience free and accessible to all via a digital map on your own device @goldcoastartroll www.artroll.com.au

SkyPoint: Azul, Where circus meets the night sky: a circus work by Chelsea McGuffin & Co transporting guests into a whimsical world above the clouds at the SkyPoint Observation Deck.

Golden Ticket Group: Golden Ticket Motel: a creative tourism start-up where artists create pop-up, uniquely themed, whimsical motel rooms, tapping into the global trend of pop-up immersive event experiences.

Hand Bent Banana Arts and Health Centre: Tallebudgera Valley Views: development of a business plan for a start-up idea to grow local input and enrich the city's visitor experience through creative eco-tourism in the Gold Coast Hinterland.

The Farm: Social Muscle Club: a monthly clubhouse at Miami Marketta. Come together and share what you want from the world and what you have to give in a quintessentially local experience adapted from a highly successful project originating in Berlin.

Shock Therapy Arts: The Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T) Bus Tour: a creative development phase for a new interactive/immersive bus tour unlike anything seen on the Gold Coast.