As Creative Director of the Southern Lights Festival, I lead a youth-powered festival that hands the creative industry over to the young people who build it. Delivered through Bioluminescence in partnership with the Yuin Folk Club, Southern Lights takes an empty venue — in 2026, the Cobargo Showground Pavilion — and over four intensive days turns it into a fully realised live music and digital art event, entirely designed, built and run by regional teenagers. Participants split into teams across audio, visuals, performance, media and production, working alongside professional mentors to learn everything from sound design and stage management to projection mapping and content creation, before delivering it all live to their own community on festival night.

My role is to hold the structure that makes that possible: assembling the mentor team, setting the creative brief, and building the trust that turns a group of strangers into a functioning production crew inside four days. What comes back out the other end is the part I care about most. Participants describe leaving with real confidence — in their skills, in meeting new people, in standing on a stage — and a sense of belonging that outlasts the festival itself, with several going on to pursue music, media or events as a career path. Southern Lights Festival 2026 closed with sets from emerging South Coast artists Ava Baker & Emily Spooner, Archie Schwarz, BbyBatXox and Lilith, all held together by young people running sound, lighting, staging and socials as a professional crew. It's proof of what's possible when young people in regional communities are trusted to lead.

Southern Lights Festival 2026 was delivered in partnership with the Bioluminescence Project, Candelo Arts Society, Griffith University, RMIT and the Yuin Folk Club (Cobargo Folk Festival), with support from Destination NSW and assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.