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Sydney’s richest council has left some 200 arts companies and festivals empty-handed after capping its latest cash grants for small events and projects at just $257,000 as its lord mayor accused state and federal governments of gutting funding and shifting responsibility to councils.
In one funding category, some 140 organisations and creatives applied for projects valued at $4.7 million, ranging from music concerts to poetry readings to street and art activations. Only five projects were funded by the City of Sydney, for a total of $127,000.
Unsuccessful candidates have described the sub 4 per cent success rate as dismal and questioned the worth of applying.
“We are all acutely aware that arts funding is hyper-competitive and that a grant application is never a guarantee,” said flutist Lamorna Nightingale who applied via Backstage Music. “However, when success rates drop to these current, dismal levels, we have to ask a hard question: Is it still worth the labour?
“Preparing a worthwhile, rigorous grant application requires hours upon hours of meticulous work. The vast majority of applicants are independent artists or grassroots organisations. For them, spending a solid week writing a proposal means working for free, or diverting critically scarce resources away from what actually matters – like paying artists’ fees.
“I understand that the city wants artists to keep applying and that they are doing their best to change the system, but asking the sector to absorb this massive amount of unpaid administrative labour is no longer feasible. It’s unsustainable, and it risks silencing the exact grassroots voices that make Sydney’s culture worth investing in.”
No project-led music concert, workshop, residency or visual arts show was funded in this latest Creative Grants round, despite the council’s intention through these grants to “build the social, cultural, environmental and economic life of the city”.
In the category of festivals and events, 12 applicants of 82 were funded to the value of $150,000, with a further $131,589 awarded in in-kind support, such as subsidised studio and rehearsal spaces.
The lion’s share of funding went to the Biennale of Sydney, which received $650,000 this financial year in the major grant category, and is in line for the same for each of the next three years to fund its 2028 and 2030 editions.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the council had since overhauled its grants’ system, while insisting that “our level of funding remains consistent”.
“Successive federal and state governments have gutted funding to the arts,” Moore said. “Artists are being told by governments with the resources and responsibility to do more with less.
“Local government is increasingly expected to shoulder this responsibility. The City of Sydney has consistently provided funding each year because nurturing the seedbeds of Sydney’s creative and cultural life could hardly be more important.”
Over the past five years, the council said that it had observed a 185 per cent increase in annual applications for its creative grants program, up from 52 in 2020-21 to 148 this financial year.
Ensemble Offspring’s Claire Edwardes, who applied for $28,844 for a day of music performances and talks at Dawes Point, called for greater transparency.
“All we are asking as small-to-medium organisations is to know in advance how much total funding is on offer so we can make a judgment call,” she said.
“My feeling is that something is very, very broken in the arts funding scene in Australia right now if 141 orgs and individuals are all spending copious amounts of time on applications, not least all the collaborative support letters that are required, and in need of more than $4.7 million in total. Transparency is all that we ask for.”
This month, the council opened a new single round for 2026-27 comprising three categories of creative grant opportunities worth $1.8 million: artist support, creative projects and cultural infrastructure. The redesigned program introduces one grants round a year, where it says all applications are assessed together and funding is shared fairly across projects, communities and organisations. It also offered longer and a more streamlined application period.
All up, the City of Sydney said it had committed to spend $2.4 million in creative grants for the 2026-27 financial year, which it said was consistent with previous funding.
“When the current round of grants opened in February, we had to ensure there was enough funding for the new guidelines to open in July as well as factor in multi-year grant agreements from previous years,” a council spokesperson said. “The new program offers funding for the creative sector aligned with the needs identified in the City of Sydney’s cultural strategy.”
Missing out on city funding this time were Hayes and Griffin theatres, Sydney Eisteddfod, Red Rattler Theatre, Artspace, PACT Centre for Emerging Artists and Gondwana Choirs. Organisers of the Sydney Comedy Festival, the Sydney Zombie Walk and the Paddington Jacaranda Festival also came away empty-handed.
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