For emerging creatives, university can be about much more than what happens in the classroom. It's where musicians meet future bandmates, artists find collaborators and students begin putting their creative passion into practice.
That QUT creative community will take centre stage throughout October and November, as students share their work with Brisbane audiences as part of the 2026 QUT Creative Arts Showcase.
The annual Showcase gives prospective students and their families the chance to experience QUT Creative Arts firsthand, through performances, exhibitions and events spanning acting, animation, creative writing, dance, drama, film and screen, music, production design and visual arts.
Among those taking the stage at the QUT Music Showcase on Thursday, 8 October is third-year Bachelor of Fine Arts (Music) student Damian Broodryk and his indie-rock band King Crow.
Damian came to QUT as a songwriter with a collection of songs he wanted to bring to life and found the band to do it among his fellow students.
Finding collaborators, he said, had helped turn his songwriting into a broader creative practice.
"QUT gives you the tools and facilities to realise your creative endeavours and aspirations. It's as much a place that you go to be academic and attend classes as it is a platform for networking and working within a local scene of artists and creatives," he said.
"From McCaskie Park in Kelvin Grove to more established venues like the Junk Bar and Black Bear Lodge, you'll find QUT faces."
Fellow music student Bianca Mantarro will close this year's Music Showcase with an eight-piece band featuring a brass section and six-piece choir made up of friends she has studied and performed alongside throughout her degree.
"I can't wait to share the stage with them one more time. After going through three years of university performances together, it's going to be such a special moment," Bianca said.
"We're performing two of my original songs that are a mix of soul, funk and pop. All of the QUT showcases I've been to have left me so inspired. There's so much talent in the musicianship, versatility and passion being shared."
School of Creative Arts Head of School Professor Damian Candusso said creative communities had long played an important role in nurturing new Australian talent.
"Universities are places where creative careers can begin long before graduation. Students find their people, experiment with ideas, make work together and begin building their place within the wider creative community," Professor Candusso said.
"That's what makes the Creative Arts Showcase such an exciting time at QUT. It gives audiences a chance to experience the work our students are making now, while giving prospective students a genuine sense of the community they could become part of."
For music students, opportunities to put their learning into practice extend beyond the classroom through initiatives including the QUT student-led record label, Vermilion Records.
The label gives students practical experience across artist development, recording, live performance, promotion and other parts of the contemporary music industry.
Both Damian and Bianca have been artists with Vermilion while studying and recorded their respective debut EP and album.
"I feel like I've grown so much in my time here, from a pretty shy vocalist coming straight out of high school to an artist who knows what story I want to tell and the music I want to create, with an incredible band I've met along the way," Bianca said.
For Damian, the value of studying music also comes from being able to move between the classroom and band life, drawing on his tutors as he encounters real-world challenges.
"I can come to my tutors about the things I'm learning in their units with as much accessibility as I can come to them with a real-world problem I'm facing in my outside practice," he said.
"I think university is what you make it. And if you're going to study a creative arts degree, you've got to put your whole body into it. You've got to do it with intention."
Professor Candusso said the Showcase offered future students a different way to understand what studying creative arts could look like.
"You can read about a creative arts degree, but there's something different about stepping into the precinct and seeing students perform, exhibit and share what they've created," he said.
"For prospective students and their families, it's an invitation to come and experience that energy for themselves."
The QUT Creative Arts Showcase continues throughout October and November at the QUT Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove and Gardens Theatre at Gardens Point, with a dynamic program of student-led performances, exhibitions and showcases.
The program is available at the QUT Creative Arts Showcase website.
Showcase dates
8 October: Music Showcase
15 – 17 October: Acting (Holding the Man)
23 October: The Writers Grove
29 – 31 October: Acting (Dracula)
29 – 31 October: BCI Showcase
3 – 7 November: Visual Arts Showcase
4 - 6 November: Technical Production Showcase
5 – 6 November: Dance
Beyond the Showcase, Damian and King Crow will launch their first EP at Black Bear Lodge on 16 October. Bianca will launch her debut album, 'Sincerely B', at Mirrorball Ministries on 23 October.
