Ebony Bott’s first Brisbane Festival program as Artistic Director reflects the city’s unique character: a place whose population rises and seizes the day early.
Simultaneously, in what Bott describes as an ‘evolution, not revolution’ of the program, she has responded to Brisbane’s established and developing connections with the world, as well as its cultural history and diverse communities.
‘This year, Brisbane Festival is tuned to the frequency of this city – from first light through to after dark,’ she said.
‘It is a festival shaped by Brisbane’s energy, outdoor life and sense of momentum and possibility, bringing extraordinary artists from Queensland, across Australia and around the world into theatres, parks, riverbanks and the Festival Village [at] South Bank.’
Bott was announced as the Festival’s new Artistic Director in July 2025.
Brisbane Festival 2026 – quick links
The return of the Festival Village
Once a program mainstay in earlier editions of Brisbane Festival, the Festival Hub – now dubbed the Festival Village, in acknowledgement of Brisbane’s upcoming role as the host of the 2032 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games – returns to the South Bank Cultural Forecourt for what is billed as ‘a creative takeover’ of the precinct.
Featuring a range of free and ticketed events, the Festival Village program kicks off at 6am each day with the alcohol-free dance and wellness program Daybreaker, featuring DJ sets, yoga and opportunities for community connection.
The Festival Village also hosts the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, hosting the likes of The Choir of Man (‘balm for the soul’ according to ArtsHub’s four-and-a-half star review) and comedians The Listies’ family show, This Show is a Joke, as well as outdoors activities and shows.
These include Indigenous-led contemporary circus production Living Sculptures: How the Birds Got Their Colours, dance workshops with Queensland Ballet, and the interactive installation Giant Sing Along by Montreal-based studio Daily tous les jours, which invites festivalgoers of all ages to add their voice to a live mass choir.
Each night, the Festival Village becomes a viewing platform for the free event Bright Nights by ANZ, an outdoor water and light show on the Brisbane River featuring an exclusive soundtrack by The Veronicas.
Bright Nights by ANZ will commence each night with a Welcome to Country and a placemaking story by Traditional Owner Shannon Ruska, a Yuggera and Turrbal man – a format recalling #celebratebrisbane River of Light, a sound, light and water show that told the creation story of Maiwar (the Brisbane River) at the 2018 Brisbane Festival.
Brisbane Festival reaches for sister city and Pasifika connections
Elsewhere, Bott’s inaugural Brisbane Festival program acknowledges the city’s recently announced sister city relationship with Los Angeles, host of the 2028 Olympics, through the programming of ESCAPE, the latest production from Los Angeles company DIAVOLO | Architecture in Motion.
The production features artists from the worlds of dance, acrobatics, stunt work and circus arts performing atop a series of moving structures to a soundtrack combining pop, EDM and rock. The LA Dance Chronicle noted of the work, ‘ESCAPE ultimately succeeds because it does not rely on spectacle alone.’
Similarly, four works from Aotearoa New Zealand acknowledge that the urban corridor between Brisbane and the Gold Coast is home to the largest proportion of Pasifika peoples in Australia.
Tiri: Te Araroa Woman Far Walking adapts Witi Ihimaera’s play, originally staged in 2000, in a new bi-lingual production directed by Katie Wolfe and spanning 185 years of Aotearoa’s history, while acclaimed choreographer Tupua Tigafua’s dance work Shel We is described as ‘a deeply felt tribute to family and the ties that bind’.
Another work from Aotearoa, Betsy Balloon and the Very Great Terrible Flood, is presented as a staged reading with original music and illustration and is pitched at family audiences, while Binge Culture’s Werewolf is an immersive horror-comedy theatre show inspired by the classic social deduction game.
Switch on, light up and come alive
Bott’s 2026 Brisbane Festival has the theme ‘Switch On, Light Up, Come Alive’ and also features a range of new Australian works and acclaimed international productions, many exclusive to Brisbane.
Highlights include the world premiere of Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s Strong is the New Pretty, sharing the untold story of how the AFLW was born; the critically acclaimed Scorched Earth by Irish company Luke Murphy’s Attic Projects, whose ‘near-flawless … dense but never difficult … and deeply resonant’ Volcano was a hit at Brisbane Festival 2024; and No One Gets Out of Here Alive from Gold Coast company The Farm, described as ‘a work for all those who will die … [that] transforms mortality into a visceral, darkly funny, and unexpectedly cathartic communal experience’.
Also programmed are the Australian premiere of the Fijian Flying Circus by Fijian dance tribe VOU (‘new’ in the iTaukei language); New York puppetry company Wakka Wakka’s Dead as Dodo, a musical odyssey set in the underworld; and Bleachers, a new disability-led dance-theatre work by Sprung Dance Theatre, a collective of 10 d/Deaf and disabled artists from Bundjalung Country.
For families, the Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art hosts the exclusive Australian exhibition Make, Believe, Magic: The Worlds of The Jim Henson Company, while the broader Brisbane community can enjoy the return of Brisbane Serenades, a series of free outdoor concerts in parks, gardens and neighbourhoods across the city.
The traditional fireworks display Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, a free outdoor event along the Brisbane River through the CBD, returns on 5 September for the festival’s opening weekend.
Brisbane Festival 2026: ‘a cultural highlight’
Queensland’s Minister for Education and the Arts John-Paul Langbroek said: ‘Brisbane Festival 2026 will see the city come alive with an exciting program that showcases the extraordinary talent of Queensland artists alongside national and international creatives, with the program featuring 700 performances and over 2000 artists and arts workers.’
The Brisbane Festival ‘is a cultural highlight for locals and visitors alike,’ the Minister added.
Lord Mayor of Brisbane Adrian Schrinner said this year’s festival program ‘is packed with unforgettable experiences across Brisbane’ and added, ‘we’re proud to support Brisbane Festival and the incredible opportunities it creates for our local artists and local economy’.
