Queensland Ballet posted a net operating loss of $5.24 million after a near 30 per cent slump in annual box office revenue.
But the multimillion-dollar hit to the bottom line in 2025 was a significant improvement on the $9.5 million loss the previous year, which prompted the company to cut 29 staff, including eight dancers.
Total income rose 13 per cent on the prior year to $24.9 million, according to its 2025 annual report.
Queensland Ballet chair Brett Clark OAM said the result represented encouraging progress in a challenging environment, but long-term sustainability would “require continued cost discipline across the organisation”.
“While there is considerably more work ahead, we now have a stronger foundation, greater clarity and a clear path toward building a financially resilient, artistically ambitious Queensland Ballet,” he said.
QB’s total box office for 2025 was more than $5.1 million from 50,098 tickets sold, down from more than $7.6 million in 2024.
As always, the company’s standout performer was its annual staging of The Nutcracker, which sold 19,782 tickets and generated $2.5 million in revenue.
Other popular performances included Romeo & Juliet and Dangerous Liaisons.
The company’s annual Giving Day exceeded its $2 million target, raising more than $2.22 million for the Academy of Queensland Ballet.
For 2025, Queensland Ballet received $3.7 million in funding from the state government through Arts Queensland, with the Department of Education and Queensland Health supplying another $1.3 million.
A further $1.9 million came from the Department of Housing and Public Works for the cafe and restaurant fitout at the ballet’s West End headquarters, the Thomas Dixon Centre.
However, Queensland Ballet only received $873,440 in annual investment from Creative Australia for 2025 under the National Performing Arts Partnership Framework.
By contrast, The Australian Ballet received more than $7 million in federal funding. The annual investment under the framework is locked in until 2028.
A petition organised by Queensland Ballet dancers last year asking for more federal funding received nearly 4000 signatures.
Queensland Ballet can look forward to a budget boost of $2 million this year thanks to a bequest from the late art historian, curator and collector Glenn Rycen Cooke, which Brisbane-based contemporary dance company Australasian Dance Collective contested unsuccessfully in the Supreme Court.
In 2025, the company expanded programming in its own Talbot Theatre and opened the restaurant Layla by Shane Delia, with 187,000 visitors to the Thomas Dixon Centre.
It also began a three-year partnership with HOTA and Experience Gold Coast, with a dance work inspired by the music of Sia, Elastic Hearts, premiering on the Gold Coast.
“We must be ambitious about creating new work, but also intelligent about how it is created, where it premieres, and the audiences it can reach,” Queensland Ballet artistic director Ivan Gil-Ortega said.
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