The festival will be held over eight days this year, starting on October 5. 

It will include shows at Her Majesty’s Theatre for the first time and in a Spiegeltent, which will be set up in Armstrong Street South beside 

Central Square. 

Festival artistic director Graeme Russell said the program was growing exponentially, with ticket sales increasing 50 per cent in its second year.

He expected ticket sales to grow further this year with the festival coinciding with the World Masters 

Rowing. 

Ballarat performer Sophie Livitsanis will perform her own new show Liza INXS, combining the stories of Liza Minnelli and Michael Hutchence and reflecting each other’s lives in the other. 

“There are lot of parallels between Liza and Michael Hutchence,” she said. 

“I’ve been wanting to do something like this for about the past 15 years.”

She said Liza Minnelli shows usually attracted quite a targeted audience, but hoped the INXS story would appeal to those who otherwise wouldn’t have thought to go to a Liza concert. 

Darcy Dann and Josh Sanders will be part of the In Development act, where students are chosen from Federation University’s graduation class to perform in the festival. 

Four students will give cabaret acts, with Ms Dann to MC the performances.