Work experience
The Opera House is committed to providing artistic, cultural, educational and employment opportunities that build capacity and understanding. The Opera House believes creating these opportunities is essential to nurture the next generation of artists, audiences and visitors.
The Opera House employs over 900 people working across a range of vocations to maintain its status as a world-class performing arts venue, a world heritage listed site and a tourism and entertainment provider. Participants will interact with a range of employees and visitors throughout the week. Wherever possible, students are given practical experiences. The experiences on offer will vary each work experience week and depend on what is happening at the Opera House at the time.
As the Sydney Opera House is primarily a performance venue, the work that happens here focuses on getting the show on stage rather than producing the show. If you are interested in creating, making and performing in shows, you may wish to explore work experience opportunities with our Resident Companies.
2024 Open Program dates: Announced soon
The Open Work Experience Program is open to secondary school students who are ideally studying in Year 10. The week-long program (Monday to Friday, 9.00am to 3.00pm) gives participants a hands-on experience of how the Opera House operates. Participants will meet and work alongside a diverse range of Opera House employees from Ticketing Sales Representatives to Stage Managers to Building Operations Supervisors. We are one of the world’s busiest performing arts venues and the experiences we offer will vary between programs depending on our programming commitments.
To be eligible for our work experience program applicants must be:
• An Australian citizen or permanent resident
• Currently studying in secondary school (ideally in Year 10)
• Covered with appropriate insurance by the applicant’s school for the duration of the work experience (successful applicants will be asked to provide paperwork to verify this).
We welcome applications from students who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and students with disabilities.
First Nations
The Sydney Opera House provides practical, hands-on, employment experiences to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to support long term career opportunities in the performing arts industry.
The best way for students to experience what we do and what the Opera House has to offer is through our Work Experience Program. Through our partnership with the NSW Department of Education we facilitate a one-week Work Experience Program for First Nations students who are studying in years 9-12. Students will be introduced to a variety of teams across the organisation and observe a variety of roles being performed from staging and lighting a live performance to marketing our shows or greeting our visitors onsite via our Welcome team. The experience offers students an insight into our iconic venue and what it takes to put live performances to stage by our talented and diverse teams.
Students will be hosted for the week by members from our First Nations Staff Network group and previous participants of our First Nations Work Experience program who have gone on to secure internships or permanent employment opportunities at the Opera House.
After completing our Work Experience Program, students can apply for a paid internship. These internships are currently offered in our Ticketing Sales Team where students develop skills in sales and customer service, operating ticketing software and basic computing. The internship is based on a 90 hour contract as a Ticketing Sales Representative. The hours of work are designed to fit around the students’ study.
