The Lyrebird Awards were originally inspired by Jeff Jones after attending the inaugural Gippsland Amateur Theatre Awards in 1992. He took his idea of having awards in his local area to Trish Juster-Schofield and a meeting was held to ascertain the feasibility of the awards. Together they formed the Lyrebird Awards to celebrate excellence and encourage participation within non professional performing arts associations in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

In 2006 the Lyrebird Awards Committee introduced the annual Youth Awards ceremony which has now grown into a wonderful celebration of youth achievement in arts. Its aims to acknowledge the achievements of many outstanding Youth performers in our local community. As per the Adult Awards, the Youth Awards are designed to recognise artistic merit and celebrate artistic endeavor of young performers and to encourage them to continue in their performance pursuits.