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Perth International Arts Festival 2015 promised to be an exploration of the epic and the intimate: from a phenomenal event engaging an audience of 1.4 million to the incredible beauty of being in an audience of just a handful of people. From Giants to the most delicate Butterfly, the 2015 Perth Festival has taken the city of Perth on an astonishing journey.

"Festivals are a long time in the preparation and are very quick in the consuming, and the way that audiences have devoured the 2015 Festival has exceeded even our expectations," Artistic Director Jonathan Holloway said.

"International arts festivals are of course about choices and decisions and I couldn't be happier with the choices we've made in putting together this year's Festival, or prouder of the decision of our audiences to attend so much, so often.

"The audiences and artists for the Perth Festival are always totally diverse but this year's Festival really has seen what happens when some of the world's great artists meet one of the world's greatest audiences."

On the epic end of the scale, an audience of 1.4 million experienced The Incredible and Phenomenal Journey of the Giants to the Streets of Perth , by France's Royal de Luxe, in a three-day free spectacular which opened the 63 ^rd Perth International Arts Festival.

Visitors from around Australia and the world joined the people of Western Australia and fell in love with the 6-metre Little Girl Giant and stood in awe of the 11-metre high Diver Giant.

Over three days the narrative wove together a commemoration of the Centenary of Anzac and a celebration of the Aboriginal community of Western Australia, and above all united the city in child-like wonder. It has been widely accepted that Perth will never forget the weekend that it walked with Giants.

The $22 million 2015 Perth International Arts Festival attracted the biggest ever audience, with 1.65 million attendances and a gross box office of about $6.1 million, with five weeks of Lotterywest Festival Films still to run.

This year's Festival was the final festival for Jonathan Holloway, Artistic Director 2012 - 2015, in Perth.

During this time the Festival has delivered on a promise to be an explosion of energy, filling venues from concert halls and theatres to disused buildings and parks. With each year made up of more than 820 events featuring 1,000 artists from around the world joining hundreds more from WA over three weeks, between 500,000 and 1.65 million people have engaged with the Festival each year. The 2015 Festival has brought to its conclusion the four ideas Jonathan has explored over his four festivals.

Among the giants of the arts who presented work in the past four Festivals were Lucinda Childs Dance Company, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, James Thiérrée, Peter Brook, The Berliner Ensemble, Mark Morris, Batsheva Dance Company, William Kentridge, Choi Jeong Hwa, U-ram Choe, Do Ho Suh, Mariko Mori, Jeremy Deller, Jim Campbell, Sydney Theatre Company, National Theatre of Scotland, Kronos Quartet, Maceo Parker, Sinead O'Connor, Rufus Wainwright, Booker T Jones, Public Enemy, The National, Bon Iver, Margaret Atwood, Martin Amis, Elizabeth Gilbert, Hilary Mantel, Richard Flanagan, Eleanor Catton,  William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, The Sixteen, Sir Richard Armstrong, Lisa Gasteen, Bryce Dessner, Dawn Upshaw, Ludovico Einaudi and Ennio Morricone.

We promised to bring to Perth the art of the unexpected, disrupting the city, allowing us to see our surroundings and lives with fresh clarity. From Place des Anges , which in 2012 saw two tonnes of feathers dropped over an audience of around 30,000, this year was taken to a new level by The Giants and the transformative nature of this incredible event.

The stories and talent of Western Australia have seen the Festival present works as diverse as Driving Into Walls, The White Divers of Broome and Cut the Sky , along with the rich local offerings of the Great Southern Festival. This year's program highlights included explorations of WA's role in the Anzac centenary in Black Diggers , The Giants , the Australian String Quartet's Gallipoli.

One of the major innovations of Jonathan's tenure has been the Vital Stages program, started in 2012, which has seen a significant increase in collaboration with the local arts sector, with hundreds of local artists featuring in Jonathan's four Festivals.

We have involved the people of Perth and beyond as active collaborators in the Festival with work that has captured the imagination, including Oráculos, Super Night Shot, The House of Dreaming, Situation Rooms, Coast,  Between the Desert and the Deep Blue Sea: A Symphony for Perth, You Once Said Yes, The House Where Winter Lives , and of course, The Giants .

"I've had the time of my life in Perth both professionally and personally," Jonathan Holloway said.

"The beauty and warmth of both the place and the people have made the time my family and I have spent here unforgettable and the extraordinary passion of the Festival team, our supporters, our artists and our audiences have made delivering a festival of this scale and depth both surprisingly easy and unbelievably rewarding.

"From the moment the first feather fell at Place des Anges , I've watched people continue to fall in love with arts and culture in this city and I will forever tell the stories of how Western Australia embraced some of the most ambitious and uplifting arts events the world has ever seen."

Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett said: "Jonathan has been an absolute live wire in the arts community and has been really good for entertainment and culture in Perth.

"He has brought his own flair and his personality has been a big factor in his success. The Giants were the culmination of Jonathan's four years at the Festival.

"One of the untold stories of the Giants was when Jonathan came to a meeting in my office with me and some of the corporate sponsors and he just won us over with his enthusiasm for the Giants. He just got us all on board. He was so enthusiastic that no one could argue with him," the Premier said.

Perth Festival Chair E/Professor Margaret Seares AO said Jonathan had brought experience and vision to his role in his four years at the artistic helm of the Festival.

"Jonathan's passion for the arts and his tenacity have helped him make an important and wide-ranging contribution to the Perth International Arts Festival," she said.

"Under his inspired artistic leadership the Festival's international excellence program and collaborations with the local arts have both expanded. Thousands of artists from around the world and from WA have brought art of the highest quality to Western Australian audiences."

Perth Festival General Manager Julian Donaldson said: "Jonathan Holloway has curated four remarkable Festivals which will long be remembered for their ambition, scale, and the opportunities for audiences to participate at the heart of the artistic experience."

"Perth is very much the richer for the imaginative disruption bought by Jonathan's festival programming."

Over four highly successful years, we have made the Perth International Arts Festival an international event for absolutely everyone in celebration of our position as the longest running arts festival in Australia and our location in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Perth International Arts Festival

Founded in 1953 by The University of Western Australia, the Perth International Arts Festival is the longest running international arts festival in Australia and Western Australia's premier cultural event. The Festival has developed a worldwide reputation for excellence in its international program, the presentation of new works and the highest quality artistic experiences for its audience.  For 62 years the Festival has welcomed to Perth some of the world's greatest living artists and now connects with over 500,000 people each year.

Jonathan Holloway is the Artistic Director 2012-2015.

Media references

Rosita Stangl (Media, Perth International Arts Festival)                            (+61 4) 409 117 157
David Stacey (UWA Media Manager)                         (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 32 637 716