Midsumma Festival 2026 highlights. Images: Supplied.
It’s time to roll out the rainbow carpet! Midsumma Festival is back, back, back again and ready to paint the town with 22 days of sun-kissed queer joy from 18 January to 8 February.
Before the famous Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras kicks off in February, Melbourne’s own massive celebration of LGBTQIA+ community, arts and culture leads the charge with a packed program of over 200 events across more than 150 venues across Victoria.
Alannah Sue is a writer, editor, theatre critic and content creator with a passion for arts and culture and all that glitters. After spending more than a decade embedded in the Sydney arts landscape and finishing up her tenure as Arts & Culture Editor at Time Out, she relocated to Melbourne in 2025. In addition to contributing to ArtsHub and ScreenHub, her freelance portfolio also expands to editorial and copywriting for lifestyle and arts publications such as Limelight and Urban List, cultural institutions like the Sydney Opera House, and marketing and publicity services for independent artists.
She is always keen to take a chance on weird performance art, theatre of all kinds, out-of-the-box exhibitions, queer venues, and cheap Prosecco. Give her half a chance, and she will get on a soapbox when it comes to topics like the magic of musical theatre, the importance of rigorous arts criticism, and the global cultural implications of the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise. Connect with Alannah on Instagram: @alannurgh.
