2024 was a challenging year for Flipside. In January, a fire nearly destroyed the venue we’d worked so hard to build. The fire forced us from our home for almost 10 months. It also caused the loss of over 75% of our ground apparatus and the almost total loss of our aerial and rigging equipment.

Our operations and programs were massively disrupted while earned income collapsed. We responded by adapting programs and reducing costs. The Flipside community rallied, raising almost $30,000 in the immediate aftermath of the fire. Funding partners, collaborators, and supporters also assisted; with Arts Queensland providing key support along with Creative Australia and other sponsors/partners.

We delivered programs from a patchwork of temporary venues including the Brisbane Powerhouse, Superordinary, Pink Flamingo, Northshore, and Eat Street. In May, Superordinary was damaged by fire which caused further loss of our equipment and again forced us to move to a whole new range of temporary venues. In September, with the majority of repairs complete, we returned home to the Brisbane Circus Centre.

Despite these impacts we continued to deliver our core programs in 2024—working from 11 different temporary spaces. We only stopped delivering programs for three days in total. We supported two amazing companies-in-residence and 1,163 artists. Our touring programs broke records reaching more people in regional and remote communities than ever before.

We could not have done this without the herculean efforts of our staff, our board, and our community. The silver lining from 2024 was that it brought us closer to our friends and partners. We were supported by a thousand small kindnesses throughout the year, from our sister organisations lending us gear (and checking in on us) to old friends reaching into their pocket to support our fundraising campaigns.

It will take time for Flipside to recover from the fire, we do not expect earned income to be back to pre‑fire levels until the second half of 2025; and we have missed a lot of growth in between times.

It will also take most of 2025 for us to rebuild our staffing levels and organisational capacity. But there’s a lot to look forward to. In 2024 we developed new performance works that will hit the stage in 2025 and 2026. We have exciting collaborations coming up, new training programs, and another whole year of touring. In February 2025, we were honoured to receive industry recognition taking home the Gold Matilda at the Matilda Awards. Flipside’s 2024 annual report is testament to the strength of our community and the people who make this organisation great.

Robert Kronk
CEO/Artistic Director