Festivals

Australia’s performing arts festivals — the planning guide

Australia runs one of the densest festival calendars in the English-speaking world, and the smart way to use it is to plan your year — or your trip — around them. Each capital has at least one flagship festival; the major regional centres have specialist ones. Here’s the calendar we work to, and the festivals we’d build a trip around.

Summer (January – February)

• Sydney Festival — January, three weeks. Theatre, dance, music, free outdoor programming around the Domain and Parramatta. The country’s biggest summer arts festival by audience.
• Perth Festival — late February into early March. Australia’s oldest international arts festival; consistently the strongest contemporary international programming in the country.
• Midsumma Festival — Melbourne, January–February. Australia’s leading queer arts festival.

Autumn (March)

• Adelaide Festival — early March, two and a bit weeks. The premier mainstage festival in the country; if you can only do one, do this one. Pairs with the Adelaide Fringe (the second-largest fringe in the world after Edinburgh) and Adelaide Writers’ Week, which run alongside.
• WOMADelaide — early March, Botanic Park, Adelaide. World music four-day festival.
• Ten Days on the Island — Tasmania, biennial March festival.

Winter (June – July)

• RISING — Melbourne, June. The successor to White Night and the Melbourne International Arts Festival; ambitious, dark-themed.
• Dark Mofo — Hobart, June. MONA’s winter festival of art, music and the deliberately strange. Books out months ahead.
• Adelaide Cabaret Festival — June, Adelaide Festival Centre. The largest dedicated cabaret festival in the world.

Spring (September – November)

• Brisbane Festival — September, three weeks. South Bank programming plus Riverfire fireworks closer.
• Melbourne Fringe — late September into October. Australia’s biggest fringe.
• OzAsia Festival — Adelaide, October. The country’s leading festival of contemporary Asian arts.
• Sydney Festival of Dance — sporadic, watch the Sydney Dance Company programme.

How to plan a trip around a festival

Festivals reward planning. The best mainstage shows at Adelaide Festival sell out within forty-eight hours of programme launch in October. Dark Mofo’s drawcards close out within an hour. Perth Festival’s international tickets often go before Christmas. Here’s how we approach it:

1. Watch programme-launch dates. Adelaide and Perth launch in October for the following March, RISING in March for June, Sydney Festival in October for January, Brisbane in May for September. We post each launch date and the tickets we’d grab.
2. Book accommodation when you book the shows. Adelaide hotels in Festival fortnight quote double the rest-of-year rate, and the city is small — anything later than November and you’re staying in suburbs.
3. Pair festivals with the local majors. Adelaide Festival’s run overlaps with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and State Opera SA seasons. Perth Festival overlaps with WASO. Sydney Festival overlaps with the Sydney Symphony’s January run.

Our running festival coverage

We cover programme launches, opening-night reviews, and the festivals worth flying interstate for in Festivals. For trip planning around a festival, see our regional touring guide for the lead-up dates and the major companies performing in the host city that fortnight.