Company directors are still trading but refuse to liaise with creditors, while debt is estimated at over half a million dollars.

Five months on from the artistic successes of this year’s Brisbane Baroque, it still appears that only a handful of artists have been paid for their work, despite audience attendance – and therefore box office returns – suggesting a positive financial outcome. Meanwhile, Limelight has discovered that other companies owned by the directors are still trading, despite festival debts estimated at well over half a million dollars.

Reports in Limelight and other Australian media back in June revealed serious management irregularities, while the Event Owner and Executive Director, Jarrod Carland had reportedly checked himself into a medical institution in Victoria. Many in the arts community were therefore surprised when in July, Carland’s fellow director and boyfriend Shannon Pigram appeared at the Helpmann Awards in Sydney to acknowledge the audience applause on behalf of absent singers and collect a slew of trophies in place of his “seriously ill partner”.

^{Jarrod Carland accepting the Helpmann for Faramondo in 2015}

Following the Helpmanns, on July 25, the Brisbane Baroque website was updated with...