From Thursday 22 to Sunday 25 October, Melbourne Fringe Festival is taking over Ballarat.
Fringe Encore: Ballarat is the Festival’s regional encore season: twelve shows across five venues, within a short walk of each other in Ballarat Central.
Three headline shows play only in Ballarat this Festival:
- Degustation, a world premiere at the Ballarat Mining Exchange. You eat five courses by chef Shu Liu of SHU Restaurant while six One Fell Swoop acrobats perform around the table.
- Fountain Lakes: Y2K, a Victorian premiere at Civic Hall. Art Simone of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, Thomas Jaspers and Jemima Handful play TV’s foxy ladies on the eve of the new millennium.
- Sammy J – Hero Complex, one night only at Civic Hall on Saturday 24 October. The Festival’s 2025 Living Legend brings back the show that won Best Comedy at Melbourne Fringe in 2016.
On Saturday and Sunday, Na Djinang Circus’s Ocker sets off from the Civic Hall forecourt at 11am and 2pm. It’s free, and you follow the troupe on foot as they lay a railway track through the streets.
Plus, a second chance at highlights you might have missed during their Melbourne season:
- Elaine Crombie – Grief, Love and Lead Balloons
- Harold Holt: The Man, The Myth, The Pool, by James Ward (@james.haha.nice)
- Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour, by Conk
- Yellow Fever: An Original Musical Cabaret, by Kelly Lim Harris
- Little Squirt, Darby James’s musical about sperm donation, winner of Best Cabaret at Melbourne Fringe 2023
- Dune But Worse, Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin retells the Dune saga as a solo clown show
- Murder in the Market: A Murder Village Improvised Whodunnit, you suggest the clue and the weapon for a new mystery each night.
- 100BPM, a contemporary dance work by Elena Osalde
Shows run from lunchtime to late, so you can build a one show, one night or whole weekend itinerary. Fringe Encore: ticket holders also get offers at ten Ballarat bars, cafes and restaurants.
Find out more on the Melbourne Fringe website
For more information click here
