The Mildura Wentworth Arts Festival

Twenty years on

The clearest published marker of the festival's age is its 2014 edition, promoted as a celebration of twenty years. That program ran from 28 February to 9 March 2014 and, according to ArtsHub, opened on the lawns of the Mildura Arts Centre. We could not find a reliable account of the very first edition, though the twenty-year mark lines up with Arts Mildura's own beginnings in late 1994.

What the program held

Its range was deliberately wide. The launch notice for 2014 listed theatre, music, exhibitions, visual and performing arts, dance, workshops, big-screen sessions, panel discussions, fashion and comedy. Arts Mildura described the festival as its biggest free community event, with a River Party, a Street Party, an outdoor screen and live bands among the attractions.

Alongside the public events ran more specialised programming. In March 2015, for example, the Melbourne new-music group Syzygy Ensemble gave a concert of contemporary chamber works in Mildura as part of that year's festival series, which shows how far the program could stretch from a street party.

Why two towns

Mildura is in Victoria and Wentworth is across the Murray in New South Wales, a short way from where the Darling meets it. A festival carrying both names reflected a district that functions as one community despite the state border running through it. Local music events have since used the same pairing, as the Mildura Wentworth Country Music Festival did when it was revived in 2025.

A note on old links

Older websites still point to program and package pages for this festival. Those pages no longer exist, and we offer no packages, tickets or accommodation. This article stands in as a record of what the festival was, and it does not suggest that a future edition is planned.