The Royal South Street Eisteddfod is held annually in Ballarat, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It is also known as The Grand National Eisteddfod of Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

 and is administered by the Royal South Street Society.

History

South Street began as a debating competition run by the South Street Society in 1891. It soon grew and now includes public speaking, acting, singing, music, dance and calisthenics.

Venues

Since 1965 it has been held in Her Majesty’s Theatre Ballarat, Australia's oldest continually operating theatre. It was purchased after the South Street Society ran an appeal. Today Her Majesty's is the main venue for the Eisteddfod, but it was gifted to the City of Ballarat

Ballarat, Victoria

Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...

 in 1987 to enable government funding for major upgrades, restorations and maintenance work.

Competitors

Notable competitors past eisteddfods include:

• James Scullin
  James Scullin
  James Henry Scullin , Australian Labor politician and the ninth Prime Minister of Australia. Two days after he was sworn in as Prime Minister, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the beginning of the Great Depression and subsequent Great Depression in Australia.-Early life:Scullin was...
  
  
• Alfred Deakin
  Alfred Deakin
  Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
  
  
• Mary Grant Bruce
  Mary Grant Bruce
  Mary Grant Bruce , also known as Minnie Bruce, was an Australian children's author and journalist. While all her thirty-seven books enjoyed popular success in Australia and overseas, particularly in the United Kingdom, she was most famous for the Billabong series, focussing on the adventures of the...
  
  
• Amy Castles
• Joan Kirner
  Joan Kirner
  Joan Elizabeth Kirner AM , Australian politician, was the 42nd Premier of Victoria, the first woman to hold the position, which she held for two years prior to a landslide election defeat.-Biography:...
  
  
• Denise Drysdale
  Denise Drysdale
  Denise Anne Christina Drysdale, is an Australian television personality and comedian. She is often affectionately called Ding-Dong.-Childhood:...
  
  
• David Atkins
  David Atkins
  David Atkins, OAM was recognised in the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours with a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the entertainment industry and is Australia’s most awarded producer, choreographer and director, and CEO of David Atkins Enterprises, a major-events production...
  
  
• Kiri Te Kanawa
  Kiri Te Kanawa
  Dame Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, ONZ, DBE, AC is a New Zealand / Māori soprano who has had a highly successful international opera career since 1968. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved sopranos in both the United States and Britain she possesses a warm full lyric soprano voice, singing a wide array...