It’s time to start gearing up for Brisbane Festival 2021!
The festival runs through the whole of September; there’s so much on I’m genuinely not sure where to begin.
With over 70 features, performances, installations, you name it, it may as well be a smaller-scale Disneyland for the creative and performing arts in the South-East.
Some of the more notable performers include David Campbell “Back in the Swing”, Kate Miller-Heidke at the South Bank Piazza, Brisbane band Sheppard, and Boy & Bear, performing at the Tivoli.

There is also a heap of music and dance performances happening across the Powerhouse, Griffith’s Conservatorium Theatre, and QPAC.
If you’re after some narrative Drama, the stage adaptation of Trent Dalton’s wildly successful novel ‘Boy Swallows Universe’ is on at the Playhouse Theatre in QPAC.
Or if you just want some music to tap your foot to on the street, the Street Serenades program is full of quality musicians including Boy & Bear, Luke Kennedy (previously on The Voice), emerging experimental-pop artist Odette (a personal favourite of mine), Christine Anu, Eurovision Semi-finalist Montaigne, Aya J, Brunswick Street Parade and plenty, plenty more.
For a more tranquil and serene experience, Brisbane’s Art Boat: Northshore Loop will be completing circuits of the river, “immersing audiences in a glowing world to experience the Brisbane River in a new light”. It also hosts a bar with its own musical entertainment.
The Art Boat experience will also include this pretty epic multi-sensory installation called the ‘Airship Orchestra’.

Elsewhere, the BOQ Festival Garden will be showing off the discoveries of UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience Institute in a “game of secrets and spectacle hidden in the rainforest”.
There is also some comedy happening: Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t at the Princess Theatre, Let’s Be Friends Furever at the Powerhouse, and the Funny Mummies Comedy Gala at the Metro Arts. All from the 15 to the 25th of September.
Finally, if you’ve got little ones, there’s a Ballet performance of Peter and the Wolf at the Judith Wright Arts Centre, a dance Eisteddfod at the South Bank Piazza and the BOQ Festival Garden, a performance of Wilbur the Optical Whale at the Metro Arts, and performance group Babushka put on a show described as “School of Rock meets Beastie Boys and the Spice Girls”.
This is all just a taste. Be sure to check out the link below for the full program HERE.
It really does look like a great month to celebrate our city. Cya there!