The 2026 Brisbane Festival program is underway, featuring 23 days of performance and public art.
It is the first year of the festival under new Artistic Director Ebony Bott and features 2000 artists and more than 750 performances.
More than 70 percent of the program is free to the public.
Ms Bott said bringing the core of the Brisbane Festival home to South Bank felt like “opening our arms to the whole city, creating a Village where everyone can find their own kind of magic”.
“But wherever you are in Brisbane, there’s something waiting to surprise, delight or connect you,” she said.
“Across theatres, parks, streets and neighbourhoods, Brisbane is at its most creative, most generous and most alive, and we can’t wait to share it with you.”
The following are some of the highlights.
Verso Projects. Festival Village, South Bank
This area is home to opening night activities and free and ticketed events across the 23 days. It includes the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, the nightly river spectacular Bright Nights by ANZ, and the interactive mass-choir installation Giant Sing Along by Montreal studio Daily tous les jours.
The venue operates from first light to after dark.
Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent
Each evening, the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent is transformed into the home of West End The Choir of Man, “a raucous, roof-raising celebration of music and community”.
South Bank Piazza
The Fijian Flying Circus makes its Australian premiere under the big top, “bringing a dazzling, high-energy celebration of spirit and culture from Fijian dance tribe VOU”. The performance fuses aerial acrobatics, gravity-defying stunts and storytelling.
Strong is the New Pretty
Strong is the New Pretty at QPAC is a world premiere – a co-production between Brisbane Festival, Sydney Theatre Company and Trish Wadley Productions, in which playwright Suzie Miller (Prima Facie, RBG: Of Many, One) turn her talents to the untold story of how the AFLW was born.
Scorched Earth
Fresh from a US premiere at New York’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, Scorched Earth, from Luke Murphy’s Attic Projects, examines the “darkest questions of the Irish psyche inside a stark interrogation room”.
Escape
Escape is the latest production from Los Angeles company DIAVOLO | Architecture in Motion, “turning moving architectural structures into the stage for elite athletic performance across dance, acrobatics, stunt work and circus arts”.
Mama Does Derby
Written by 2024 Scotsman First Fringe Award winner Virginia Gay and directed by Clare Watson, Mama Does Derby brings the “sweaty, radical world of roller derby to Brisbane Powerhouse”. “Told through theatre, live punk band and roller derby’s radical spirit, it’s a rollicking new work about a single mum and daughter finding their feet in a regional town where neither quite belongs”.
No One Gets Out of Here Alive
Gold Coast company The Farm’s No One Gets Out of Here Alive “takes on mortality itself, drawing on opera, ballet, dance, voice and music to transform life’s big and small endings into a visceral, darkly funny and unexpectedly cathartic communal experience.”
Compassion
Internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Lior joins forces with renowned conductor Kelly Lovelady and the Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra for Compassion, a “symphony of universal peace and love, while Be the Sky, curated by Professor Vanessa Tomlinson, sees Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal collaborate with Philip Glass in a meditative rendering of the composer’s work”.
Night at the Parkland
Night at the Parkland returns, gathering local and international names beneath the stars – Human Nature, Icehouse, The Temper Trap, The Cruel Sea with Magic Dirt, Missy Higgins and PNAU among them. For a change of pace, organist Calvin Bowman takes on The Complete Bach Cycle, working through the composer’s entire organ repertoire, from hushed, spiritually charged chorale preludes to virtuosic preludes and fugues, on QPAC’s Concert Hall pipe organ.
The world of Jim Henson
Exclusively at QAGOMA, Make, Believe, Magic: The Worlds of The Jim Henson Company takes visitors on a journey through the “creative magic behind some of the most cherished characters in screen history and the fantastical worlds of The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and Fraggle Rock.
Betsy Balloon and the Very Great Terrible Flood
At QPAC’s Cremorne Theatre, Betsy Balloon and the Very Great Terrible Flood brings “Bill Manhire’s rambunctious modern fable to life in the story of a girl from a balloon-factory island whose world quite literally pops, sending her to a rain-soaked city that is slowly, inexorably sinking”.
Brisbane Serenades
Brisbane Serenades returns with a series of free outdoor concerts across the city’s parks and neighbourhoods, while the Moorooka Block Party chalks up five years with a stacked lineup of live music, dance and family-friendly activities.
Community Choir: The Musical
Community Choir: The Musical is a “heartwarming and hilarious tale performed almost entirely by locals, blurring the line between choir and theatre to celebrate collective creativity and everyday voices made extraordinary”.
Music and dance in the suburbs
“Brisbane’s most beloved dance battle of the ‘burbs, the Common People Dance Eisteddfod, sees seven southeast Queensland teams jazz-sliding, body-rolling and high-kicking their way to glory”. The suburban celebration happens across the city with neighborhood favorites like the coastal live music showcase Manly Serenades and the family-friendly St Lucia Block Party on The University of Queensland grounds.
Quandamooka Festival
The annual Quandamooka Festival continues as one of the most significant First Nations cultural gatherings in Queensland with a celebration of the living culture, art and stories of the Quandamooka people of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island).
Lord Mayor’s City Hall Concerts
Four special Festival-edition Lord Mayor’s City Hall Concerts will happen during lunch hours in September – David Bailey’s live original score for Buster Keaton’s silent classics, the storytelling and rich traditional rhythms of East of West, the UQ Music Gala’s showcase of bold local talent, and the Lord Mayor’s Children’s Program favourite TheatreDome.
Brisbane Festival runs from September 4 to 26, 2026.
Full program and tickets are at brisbanefestival.com.au .
