Civic Theatre Performing Arts Masterplan endorsed by Council

Council has endorsed the draft Civic Theatre – Performing Arts Masterplan and approved the pursuit of future funding opportunities, as they arise, for the continued detailed planning and design of this project.

Wagga Wagga City Council placed the draft Civic Theatre Masterplan on public exhibition for a period of 28 days from 12 April to 10 May 2024.

During the exhibition period, 242 submissions were received. Of those submissions, 231 have been categorised as supportive, and 11 as non-supportive.

Council’s Director Community Janice Summerhayes says that now Council has endorsed the masterplan, staff can move forward with the search for funding.

“It was truly exciting to see the masterplan be endorsed last night,” Ms Summerhayes said.

“At the moment, we are focusing on preparing information that we can take to other levels of government as funding opportunities become available. As we do with any projects, we will be keeping a strategic focus for discussions on future budgets that come through election cycles with various government levels.

“It's an enormous credit to our community in the way they have gotten involved and put forward their ideas from the beginning about how they would like to see a performing arts centre expand. It's been a five-year journey, starting with the cultural plan back in early 2020. We've now heard the community and responded to that.

“The response we got through our consultation was overwhelming. A lot of feedback surrounding the masterplan confirmed the demand for flexibility of spaces.

“We need both smaller and larger spaces to accommodate a broader variety of performances, including cabarets, comedy festivals, recitals, and large-scale entertainment shows. We are a growing city with very diverse cohorts of interests, so the performing arts centre needs to be a space that’s flexible enough to reflect that diversity.”