Adelaide’s Feast Festival has announced its headliner for 2015 – Eurovision 2014 winner Conchita Wurst.

The Austrian performer will feature several times throughout the festival, according to the Sunday Mail, with additional appearances in Melbourne and Sydney (including a performance on the X Factor).

The star made news around the globe when she rose to the top of Eurovision 2014 with her powerful winning single Rise Like A Phoenix which reached number one in Austria and the UK. Some have criticised the move to invite an international headliner as hype at the expense of promoting and supporting local performers.

“While it is exciting for SA and Adelaide to have international artists in Festival programs, it appears Feast is doing that at the expense of local artists and our own LGBTQI creative industry,” festival co-founder Helen Bock told the Sunday Mail. “The impact that losing [artistic director Catherine] Fitzgerald has had to the artistic integrity of our Festival is huge, including the integrity towards how our arts dollar is being spent.”

Back in April the festival announced its intention to move from a fully curated arts event to a “hybrid curation festival” due to financial restraints; making the role of artistic director redundant and opening the event up to registered performers in the way of the Adelaide Fringe Festival’s all-inclusive model.

Conchita’s appearance at the 2015 festival will be officially announced at an invite-only event on July 22. The full program will be released in September.

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