The Empire Launches 2025 THRIVE Festival Program
The Empire’s popular school holiday event, THRIVE Festival, is set to return from September 25-28, this year plunging beneath the waves and celebrating the wonders of the ocean.
Presented by C&K Childcare and Kindergarten along with The Empire, THRIVE Festival is an annual four-day event offering a mixture of both ticketed and free events celebrating play, imagination and storytelling in the Spring school holidays during the region’s most vibrant time of year.
The Empire Chief Executive Officer, Giuliana Bonel said this year’s THRIVE Festival, now in its eighth consecutive year, would celebrate the world under the sea with a packed program of creative and theatrical experiences for families.
“Our festival has grown and expanded significantly since its inception in 2018, last year welcoming around 2,500 visitors through the gates across the four days of the event,” Ms Bonel said.
“We are thrilled to launch the 2025 THRIVE Festival program, featuring a one-of-a-kind bubble show, a sea-themed immersive lighting experience, marine life displays, children’s workshops led by the highly popular Theatre of Magic team, as well as a host of other events and activities on The Empire Lawn,” she said.
We are eager to welcome families back to another incredible event in September when The Empire dives into a world of bubbles, colour and imagination.
Giuliana Bonel - The Empire Chief Executive Officer
Among THRIVE Festival highlights are Dr Hubble’s Bubbles, a 50-minute exploration of the miraculous moments that bubbles can create, and Sea of Light, an illuminating interactive visual experience by Patch Theatre where participants use a UV torch as their paintbrush, immersing themselves in a journey of light and imagination and leaving a glowing path in their wake.
Other ticketed experiences on the THRIVE Festival program are the School of Magic workshops, a rare chance for those aged 8-12 to learn amazing skills and tricks from some of the country’s best illusionists, The Hunt for The Empire – part children’s tour, part ultimate adventure for those aged 6-12, and First Five Forever’s reading of Kellie Byrne’s One Remarkable Reef with accompaniment by Toowoomba Concert Orchestra.
THRIVE Festival’s free offerings include the hands-on adventure Surviving and Thriving Trail, lawn games, and activities, Storytime Under the Magnolia Tree, roving entertainers, an interactive Coral Tapestry and craft projects by local art school Tinker, an installation displayed in the Church Theatre created by more than 800 local school and early education students, Thriving Jellyfish as well as an Ocean Life Education’s Marine Display ‘touch tanks’.
THRIVE Festival is presented by The Empire and C&K Childcare and Kindergarten, proudly supported by Toowoomba Regional Council, Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF), Toowoomba Orthodontists, Friends of The Empire, and Stirling and Truffles.
Bookings are essential for ticketed THRIVE Festival performances. For more information or to book tickets to THRIVE Festival performances, visit empiretheatre.com.au.
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