Cairns Performing Arts Centre

Cairns Performing Arts Centre — Far North Queensland’s mainstage venue

Cairns Performing Arts Centre sits on Florence Street in central Cairns, ten minutes’ walk from the Cairns Esplanade and the city’s hotel precinct. The Centre opened in 2018 as the first major purpose-built arts centre in tropical Far North Queensland — a long-overdue addition to the regional Queensland touring circuit and a substantial upgrade on the previous Cairns Civic Theatre. The Centre is the regular Far North touring stop for Bell Shakespeare, Musica Viva Australia, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra‘s regional tours.

The rooms

• Main Theatre — 940 seats, the principal mainstage. Used for the touring mainstage productions and the larger-scale concerts.
• Studio — configurable smaller-scale performance space.

Getting there and pairing

Walk from any Cairns CBD or Esplanade hotel — the Centre sits at the heart of the compact Cairns city. Pair the production with the Great Barrier Reef day-trip experience (departing daily from the Cairns Esplanade marina), a Daintree Rainforest day-trip, or the Atherton Tablelands wine-and-food precinct an hour’s drive south. Cairns is the most reliable cultural-tourism pairing in regional Australia — the natural-environment day-trip options are unmatched and the cultural programme is now genuinely competitive.