Founded in 1953 by The University of Western Australia, the Perth International Arts Festival is the oldest international arts festival in Australia and Western Australia’s premier cultural event. For over 50 years the Festival has welcomed to Perth some of the world’s greatest living artists.

The extraordinary programming range and physical reach of the Perth International Arts Festival connects with over 300,000 people each year who attend theatre, dance, music, film, visual arts and literature events ranging from the Great Southern to the Pilbara. No single art genre, concert, performance or exhibition series can cover the breadth of intellectual and imaginative territory as the Festival, nor reach as broadly into the community. For two generations of locals, summer in Perth without the Festival is simply unimaginable.

The Festival has grown in the past 52 years to become a Festival of major international standing with an enviable worldwide reputation in the arts for its innovative development, presentation of new works and provision of quality arts. The Festival is committed to placing local work of excellence in an international context; to raising the national profile of the arts; to being informed by the cultural and environmental context of Western Australia; to offering a diverse international programme and encouraging partnerships that offer lasting benefits

I think it's WA bias, Egan... I've not heard about your festival before...

Then again, how do the SA festivals (Adelaide festival / Fringe Festival / Womadelaide) rate interstate? I'd doubt there'd be much said about them interstate, but it's the biggest thing since sliced bread here, and they're always locally heralded as the biggest in the nation... but it'll always be like that, Melbourne media will probably say the St Kilda Festival is the shiznit, and Sydney media will say theirs is the bollocks...

Local promotion will always come before anything else, obviously...