“We’re not here to be the biggest in terms of square meterage – that’s not what matters,” Greg Fisher, CEO of Qtopia Sydney – the force behind Pride Fest – says. “What matters is impact. How are we showing up for our community? How are we telling our stories?”
Now in its second year, Pride Fest has exploded – 150+ events, 400+ artists, and a programme that reads more like a queer cultural takeover than your standard winter festival line-up. But at the heart of it all is Qtopia Sydney, the venue and community engine that’s making it happen.
Located in the former Darlinghurst Police Station and the National Art School campus, Qtopia isn’t just hosting Pride Fest – it’s reimagining what queer space looks like in Sydney. Fisher calls it “a new home for queer history, culture and community” — and it’s living up to that promise in real time.
“We honour the past because we must,” Fisher says over the phone. “From First Nations contributions to the queer experience in the Holocaust, our job is to tell the stories that haven’t been told widely enough.”
That idea of truth-telling – fierce, joyful, sometimes painful – runs deep through Pride Fest’s programming. But it’s also what gives Qtopia its pulse year-round. This is a venue that exists because it has to: part museum, part performance space, part sanctuary, part provocation.
And during Pride Fest? All hell breaks loose – in the best way.
Curated by artistic leads Carly Fisher and George Savoulis, the festival is as much about celebration as it is confrontation. There’s everything from absurdist theatre ('The Platonic Human Centipede', anyone?) to glitter-drenched cabaret ('A Friend Of Dorothy'), to talks, tours, workshops and more. It’s high camp meets heavy politics. A party with a purpose.
“We want people to laugh, cry, think, celebrate,” Fisher says. “That’s how change happens. We want them to leave changed.”
There’s a rebellious streak running through the whole thing – a refusal to water down queerness for the sake of respectability. You can feel it in the programming, but you can also feel it in the walls of Qtopia itself. This is a space built on the bones of protest – literally. One of its most powerful elements? The former police cells that once held queer people during raids, arrests, and the first Mardi Gras.
Now, those same cells are exhibition spaces. Sites of education and healing. Spaces where the very people once locked inside are reclaiming the narrative.
“They walked back in and said, ‘F... you, we’re still here’,” Fisher says of the 78ers who returned to the site. “That’s the power of this place.”
It’s not just the past that Qtopia and Pride Fest are fighting for – it’s the future. With a regional education programme taking queer history into schools across Australia, the reach is already stretching far beyond Sydney. One story Fisher tells stands out: a teenager who visited Qtopia, came out to his parents that night, then brought them back with him the next day.
“That’s the power of this place,” Fisher repeats, and you can hear the emotion in his voice.
But he’s quick to bring it back to the present – and the political urgency of now. “In Australia, we’ve had wins – but we can’t be complacent,” he warns. “You look at the States, Hungary, even parts of the UK – rights are being stripped with a pen stroke. We have to protect what we’ve built.”
That’s where Pride Fest hits different. It’s not rainbow-washed or corporatised. It’s not a month of marketing slogans. It’s art, action, memory, survival. A space to feel everything. A reminder that queer joy is powerful, and queer spaces are sacred.
“We’re not just here to be seen,” Fisher says. “We’re here to be remembered. And we’re not going anywhere.”
Qtopia Sydney's Pride Fest is on from 1-30 June.
