Hundreds of drones dazzle the night sky.

Skylore is a larger-than-life highlight of Brisbane Festival and a bright and bold celebration of our city, celebrating Culture and place. Now in its third annual iteration, Skylore has become a staple of the Festival.

Back by popular demand, Nieergoo: Spirit of the Whale returns to illuminate Brisbane’s skyline. Watch as hundreds of drones soar above the Brisbane River as Traditional Owner Yuggera and Toorabul man Shannon Ruska and Tribal Experiences retell this powerful story of Culture, Country, and connection to place, with original composition by Guy Webster.

Skylore – Nieergoo: Spirit of the Whale
25-27 September 2025 – 7:15pm, 8:15pm and 9:15pm each night
South Bank, South Brisbane
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

Follow the flame and be captivated by a glowing dreamscape of dancing shadows, candlelit installations and fire sculptures in the world premiere of Afterglow.

The fire trail is an all-ages experience, perfect for family outings, date nights or solo moments of reflection and is presented by Sony Music Entertainment as part of Brisbane Festival 2025.

A nocturnal wonderland, the City Botanic Gardens beckons visitors to enter its gates as the sun goes down and immerse themselves in a multisensory experience.

Live performances and a carefully curated ambient soundtrack spark wonder and awe as visitors journey with purpose along a 1.4km trail brought to life by world-renowned fire artists and local creative talents.

Expect to be warmed by glowing embers, intrigued by light bending and bouncing through the tree canopy, dazzled by shimmering illusions and captivated by the pulse and rhythm of flickering flames.

Brisbane Festival Artistic Director Louise Bezzina said the world premiere season of Afterglow brings a blend of spectacle and solemnity to the 2025 Festival.

“Across time and cultures, people have always felt a connection to fire – as an element of nature, a force of renewal or a symbol of ceremony and ritual,” Ms Bezzina said.

“Afterglow is a slow-burn experience, an invitation to deliberately and respectfully engage with the artistry and power of fire.”

Sony Music Australia and New Zealand Chair and CEO Vanessa Picken said the company was proud to partner again with Brisbane Festival to debut its new multisensory experience following the overwhelming success of Lightscape in 2023 and 2024.

“Afterglow is unlike anything Brisbane has witnessed before, a fusion of stillness and surprise where fire, sound and shadows combine with artistry, creativity and nature to create an unforgettable experience,” Ms Picken said.

Culture Creative Managing Director Zoe Bottrell said the brand-new fire trail was created to complement the Gardens’ natural beauty.

“Afterglow is unique. With consideration and care, we design and structure every element to illuminate this beautiful location and offer moments of transcendence and wonder to all who step into this nocturnal dreamland,” Ms Bottrell said.

Session times begin nightly at 5.45pm and run every 15 minutes until late. Visitors can experience the glowing multisensory trail at their own pace with an average duration of 90 minutes.

Afterglow is suitable for all ages and is wheelchair-and stroller-accessible.

Afterglow
5 – 27 September 2025
City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane
www.afterglowau.com

Chris, the embodiment of love itself, emanates compassion, transcending limitations and inviting us all into his radiant embrace. Yet, amidst his rich internal landscape of dreams and boundless imagination, the world often fails to see beyond the cover of the book — a book that if we dared to open, would reveal radical inspiration, creative brilliance, hope and love.

Inspired by Chris’ real-life heroes Banksy, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, Lighting the Dark shines brightly on Chris’ profoundly moving and life-affirming adventure through the world. Throughout the work, each of these icons acts as a mirror reflecting Chris’ expansive perception and limitless sense of possibility.

With the mesmerising Dancenorth Ensemble by his side, Chris leads the way, transforming the stage into a portal where love and light illuminate darkness.

A masterpiece of collaboration and community, Lighting the Dark is a profound celebration, traversing individual and universal truths in a dance to the very centre of what it means to be human.

Lighting the Dark
12-14 September 2024
Thomas Dixon Centre, 406 Montague Rd, West End
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

The multi-award-winning Volcano invites audiences into a voyeuristic journey played out across four performances full of surprise and intrigue.

A serialised live performance miniseries spanning four 45-minute episodes, Volcano crosses the boundaries of experimental theatre, contemporary dance and psychological sci-fi thriller.

Existing in a liminal space, a living room in disrepair, a room without a door, two characters recreate the greatest hits of old lives: a night at a rave, a favourite game show, an 80’s music-video, passing the time or quietly clinging to distant memories of a life out of reach. As the narrative unfolds the deeper precarity of their circumstances come to focus leading the audience through a fever dream of questions and upended assumptions.

Acclaimed director and choreographer Luke Murphy blurs the lines of form and expectation, reality and fiction in live performance made for the Netflix era, part theatre, part television series, part dance.

Audiences will experience each episode of Volcano back-to-back with short transitions between stories. A thirty-minute interval will be held after the third episode, in which audiences are invited to leave the theatre, stretch their legs, grab a bite to eat, and get ready for the final episode.

A dinner package is available as an add-on and will be served during intermission. Enjoy a meal in the break before seeing how this episodic series ends.

Volcano
Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
30 August — 14 September 2024
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

Reimagined for 2024, the globally renowned Lightscape phenomenon of light, colour and sound returns during Brisbane Festival to dazzle visitors with all-new lightworks and installations by local and international artists.

Direct from New York, Chicago and London, tickets are now on sale for internationally renowned Lightscape in Brisbane.

Two exclusive sculptural installations created by Queensland First Nations artists Paul Bong (aka Bindur Bullin) and Michelle Yeatman will take pride of place as a special feature for 2024.

Visitors can experience these incredible premiere works and more as they embark on a multi-sensory journey through light, colour and sound along a 2km self-guided trail through Brisbane’s City Botanic Gardens.

The technicolour wonderland will take visitors of all ages beneath towering tree canopies illuminated in colour, alongside larger-than-life flowers and through dynamic, glowing tunnels.

Presented by Sony Music Entertainment as part of Brisbane Festival 2024, Lightscape reveals moments of wonder and beauty to share with everyone.

Brisbane Festival Artistic Director Louise Bezzina said the 2024 program would bring the city to life with daring ideas and memorable experiences.

“I am delighted to welcome a new version of last year’s festival favourite, Lightscape, to once again delight and dazzle visitors to Brisbane’s beautiful inner-city oasis,” said Ms Bezzina.

“This year’s Brisbane Festival program encourages us to embrace frivolity and I cannot imagine a more fitting place to do so than among technicolour trees, fields of luminous blooms and ethereal soundtracks.”

Chair & CEO of Sony Music Australia and New Zealand Vanessa Picken said: “Lightscape has captivated audiences of all ages from the US to UK and throughout Australia.

“Its highly anticipated return to Brisbane will bring with it all-new lightworks, soundtracks and immersive experiences.”

Culture Creative Managing Director Zoe Bottrell said the company was proud to work with Sony Music Entertainment on a reimagined Lightscape trail for its second Brisbane season.

“Each Lightscape trail that Culture Creative curates and builds is unique and we know the trail we’ve produced for Brisbane this year will enchant new audiences and charm those who attended last year,” Ms Bottrell said.

Session times begin nightly at 5.45pm at 15-minute intervals until late. Visitors can experience the self-guided multi-sensory trail at their own pace with an average duration of 90 minutes.

Food and drink are available to purchase along the trail. Lightscape is suitable for all ages and is wheelchair and stroller accessible.

Lightscape
City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane City
29 August – 12 October 2024
www.lightscapeaustralia.com

House. Dog. Coffee machine. Joint bank accounts.

Work. Routine. Drift. Crisis.

Intimate, poetic and de-centering, Unconditional weaves a compelling tapestry of a queer relationship between a man who identifies as gay and a person whose identity evolves during their marriage… starting as “he”, but now transitioning to “she”, which destablises their union, their belief systems, and their politics.

Each playwright writes for one character in subjective monologue, duelling monologue and dialogue. Told with humour, insight and absolute honesty, Unconditional re-examines and re-defines the nature of love and what we tell ourselves we would accept.

Is love really unconditional? Or does it have conditions like everything else?

Unconditional 
Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm, Brisbane
30 August – 9 September 2023
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

The much-loved Brisbane Serenades returns in 2023 with both beloved programs and new surprises. Traversing the city from north, south, east and west, over 23 suburbs will take centre-stage for a celebration of music and community like no other and it is all FREE.

Following a standout success last year, the Moorooka Block Party returns bigger and better than ever! Mosaic Multicultural Festival is back and Victoria Park becomes Brisbane residents’ stage for the Closing Concert with a new event, All Together Now.

Brisbane Festival is dusting off and tuning up its mobile stages to once again bring the joy of music into the suburbs of Brisbane with a series of exquisite classical music concerts, presented by six of Queensland’s best classical, choral and world-fusion ensembles.

Celebrate with family, friends and neighbours and join us as we serenade you.

Brisbane Serenades
2 – 23 September
Various locations around Brisbane
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

Time to go, Time to wake up

Time to stand up and hold each other
before it is too late

Before there is nothing left

Do we fight and stay?

Do we make a change? Or do we adapt?

A dance-theatre visual feast, Salamander sees a warehouse at Northshore, Brisbane transformed into a fully immersive, climate-fiction dream-like world through light, sound, design, and movement. Es Devlin’s labyrinthian and kinetic sculptures live within a flooded landscape which is inhabited by characters desperate to make a change before it’s too late.

Maxine Doyle – together with a dynamic ensemble of international, national and local dancers, including Brisbane’s Australasian Dance Collective, with extraordinary Australian composer and singer Rachael Dease – will bring this world to life with visceral dance, and haunting melodies.

With lighting by Ben Hughes and costumes by Bruce McKinven, Salamander is a transformative performance experience set in an epic installation created by the legendary Es Devlin.

Salamander
1 – 24 September 2023
L Shed, Dock B, 221 MacArthur Ave, Hamilton, Brisbane
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

This uniquely created immersive experience takes you on a journey of the senses through light, colour and sounds, showcasing the gardens as never seen before.

Journey beneath glowing tree canopies filled with colour. Stroll alongside larger-than-life flowers and neon roots bursting from the undergrowth and amble through sparkling tunnels of light or under giant poppies suspended high in the night sky.

These breathtaking lightworks follow a two kilometre path to create an after-dark oasis of botanical brilliance.

“An engaging feast for the senses…a superbly orchestrated cornucopia of creativity.”

Lightscape
31 August – 8 October 2023
Brisbane’s City Botanic Gardens
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

This breathtaking new production from visual theatre masterminds Dead Puppet Society and physical theatre virtuosos Legs On The Wall reclaims the queer aspects of The Iliad. Set to a haunting new score performed live by Montaigne, composed with Tony Buchen and Chris Bear, this innovative new work blends heightened physicality and visual storytelling with an ensemble cast to weave a legend of mythic proportions. A tale of trials, grief and love – Holding Achilles is an epic tale about a fearless bond forged in the toughest of times.

As a young exile taken in by Achilles’ father, Patroclus faces hostility from the young hero until they are thrust together to train under the centaur Chiron, and the two form an unlikely friendship. As Achilles doggedly seeks to fulfil his mother’s prophecy to become a legend, their relationship becomes something more. But war with Troy is brewing, and the two young men find themselves caught between their hopes for a future together and the brutal realities of the world that faces them.

Holding Achilles
29 August – 10 September 2022
Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane
www.qpac.com.au