Guided by the theme, Time & Place, the 2026 Midsumma Festival explores how moments and locations shape our identities – through over 200 events spanning art, performance, music and celebration. With so much on offer, the Australian Pride Network takes a look at fifteen events worth checking out:
Midsumma Carnival
Alexandra Gardens, Melbourne: Sunday 18 January
Anchoring the opening weekend every year, Carnival launches the three-week Festival with a full-park takeover of Melbourne’s Alexandra Gardens. Celebrating local and international talent, Carnival packs the day with things to watch, try, taste and share. Stroll the riverside lawns and catch a rolling program across four stages: Main, Picnic, Sports and Family, featuring a huge array of queer artists and performers. Explore 200+ stalls from community groups and businesses, sip at pop-up bars, graze through two large food zones, and snap up free giveaways. Bring your pup for our crowd-favourite dog parade, with prizes for the most fabulous four-legged looks. Need a breather or a place to play? Carnival includes safe, welcoming spaces for everyone throughout the day, with sports activities, a dedicated youth area, and a relaxed family zone. Entry is free!
AFTERGLOW
Chapel Off Chapel: 31 January – 8 February
S. Asher Gelman’s international hit play Afterglow is heading down under for its highly anticipated Australian premiere. When Josh and Alex, a married couple in an open relationship, invite Darius to share their bed for a night, a new and intimate connection is ignited. As all three men come to terms with their individual definitions of love, loyalty, and trust, relationships are challenged and futures are shaken. The stellar cast of three comprises Julian Curtis, gold medal winning Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham and Matthew Predny. Afterglow is a raw, funny and sensual exploration of polyamory, commitment, and modern love.
Australian Open
Theatre Works: 21 – 31 January
Serving scandal, smashing egos, and dripping sweat – welcome to the Australian Open you’ve never seen before. From acclaimed queer playwright Angus Cameron, comes a razor-sharp new comedy that takes audiences courtside, where ambition, lust and rivalry collide in spectacular fashion. Under the blazing summer sun, the world’s most famous tennis tournament becomes the backdrop for a wickedly funny exploration of love, fame and the messiness of desire. Directed by Riley Spadaro, the stellar cast features Jane Montgomery Griffiths, Eddie Orton, Sebastian Li, Alec Gilbert and Melissa Kahraman.
DIVA
Australian Museum of Performing Arts: continues to 26 April
DIVA is a groundbreaking exhibition celebrating some of history’s most provocative and powerful performers. The exhibition presents more than 250 objects, including 60 spectacular costumes, jewellery, photography, art, and music, drawn from the V&A’s Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne’s Australian Performing Arts Collection, and loaned treasures from across the world. Discover the triumphs and transformations of the diva, from 19th-century opera goddesses and silent film stars to Golden Age Hollywood legends and today’s global megastars and pop icons.
Drag Storytime for Adults with Neralda Jacobs & Karina Natt
State Library of Victoria: Saturday 31 January
Join 2024 Drag Race Down Under winner Lazy Susan as they read the new picture book If Queers Weren’t Meant to Have Kids… by journalist Narelda Jacobs and her wife Karina Natt. This adults-only storytime celebrates rainbow families through humour, satire and love. Followed by an in-conversation featuring Narelda and Karina as they explore the themes of the book and ideas of storytelling, family and queer joy. Expect camp performances by Lazy Susan and Zelda Moon and rousing singalongs in this reimagining of a beloved State Library Victoria tradition – complete with a bar and a lot of heart. Equal parts laughter and liberation, this event reclaims the joy of storytelling for all, and includes a lively in-conversation and book-signing opportunity with Narelda and Karina.
Finding Glitter in the Storm
Club Voltaire: 22 – 25 January
Josh Moyes, a queer kid growing up in Byron, just wanted a doll for Christmas, but ‘Santa’ left a bong. Finding Glitter in the Storm is a darkly comic queer coming-of-age story. After moving from Geelong (Djilang) to the outskirts of Byron Bay (Bundjalung Nation), where the family bought a pirate ship, they were quickly crowned the town pirates – a perfect analogy for their beautiful dysfunction. Josh – queer, tender, and a rainbow rebel from a crew of renegade castaways – discovered how to find the sparkle looking from the shore at a sea of stoners and wave-chasers. Josh playfully and respectfully unpacks contradictions in the Byron Bay laid-back lifestyle. The show offers a unique voice about the unexpected beauty in growing up different. Through heart, humour, and unfiltered honesty, this skilful storytelling will leave you grinning and a little braver.
Mama Alto: Transcendent
Melbourne Recital Centre: 29 – 31 January
One of Australia’s finest cabaret artistes, the velvet-voiced Mama Alto, returns to the Salon at Melbourne Recital Centre for Midsumma Festival. With musical director Joshua Haines, she weaves an exquisite show that epitomises – and eclipses – the past fifteen years of her performances around the country, and around the world. First created for the revered Joe’s Pub at The Public Theatre, New York (one of the world’s greatest cabaret rooms), this show is truly Transcendent. Traversing smoky torch songs, sumptuous jazz ballads and luscious vocals, Mama’s repertoire holds both familiar melodies and unexpected morsels. With her soaring voice, exquisite sense of musicality and wondrously statuesque stage presence, Mama Alto continues to establish herself as one of Australia’s pre-eminent interpreters of the art of torch singing. Enigmatic, multifaceted and resplendent, her weaving of song and story, triumph and tragedy, poignancy and pathos make for an unforgettable musical experience.
Milo Hartill: Black, Fat and F**gy
Chapel Off Chapel: 4 – 5 February
At the centre of the Venn diagram of queer, chunky, brown women with the voice of a goddamn angel, you’ll find the terrifying talent that is Milo Hartill. How do you tell the story of a mixed race, fat, bisexual, underwear model, performer and Instagram influencer? You sing the shit out of a fistful of killer songs in a brand spanking new cabaret of course. Straddling pretty much all of the hottest 2024 minorities (take that as you will), Milo’s unique perspective has her perfectly placed to unpack the NOW. In her World Premiere new show fresh on the heels of its Sydney season, she delves into personal stories, belts out songs ranging from Mousse T to Nina Simone, and kicks around some undoubtedly controversial opinions on the current state of the influencer, theatre and singing scenes in Australia. Part cabaret, part song-cycle and part influencer-takeover, Black, Fat and F**gy is a tonic for our times and a queer Black fantasia that will leave audiences screaming with joy.
Much to do with Law, but more to do with Love
Gasworks Arts Park: 4 – 7 February
It’s alienating. It’s violent. It’s pretty much incomprehensible. For one queer lawyer, it’s the ultimate toxic lover. In his award-winning lecture-performance, Danish Sheikh returns to the courtroom that broke his heart, and the play that healed it. Tracing a journey through colonial legacies that refuse to die, court transcripts that won’t let him move on, and a certain pop star who insists on the redemptive power of shaking it off, this charming and provocative show asks: what’s the point of loving the law when the law won’t love you back? Winner of the 2025 Queer Playwriting Award!
Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens
The MC Showroom: 29 January – 1 February 2026
Born from the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens gives life and, more importantly, voice to those lost and left behind in the wake of the AIDS epidemic. This brand new production fuses Bill Russell’s original free verse poetry and Janet Hood’s musical score with new choreography by Jesse Matthews, striking right to heart of what it means to survive and be remembered. An ensemble of actors and musicians will bring this collection of songs and monologues to life, sharing this pivotal work with a new generation of queer folk – helping us all connect to our history.
SUGAR
The Show Room – Arts Centre Melbourne: continues to 25 January
Theatrical, outrageous, silly and sexy, Tomáš Kantor’s award-winning debut is about Sugar – a radiantly-beautiful gender-fluid twink who discovers that there’s money to be made from ‘transactional relationships’ (though their primary source of information is Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman). What could go wrong? Tomáš veritably shimmers with charisma, and reveals their talent not only as a storyteller, but a multi-instrumentalist and a superstar-in-the-making.
SKIN: THE PERFORMANCE
@14 Gallery, Collingwood: 6 February
Jessi Ryan returns to the Midsumma Presents program in an anarchic one night only performance art ritual which delves headfirst into childhood memory framed by the cartographic language of collective queer bodies, climaxing in a live tattooing amid the haze and lasers. Transporting its audience to a crowded dance floor – the birthplace of so many queer histories – Ryan here embraces and centres the stories and images of SKIN’s community participants. In SKIN: THE PERFORMANCE, Ryan’s unique methods of community documentation shines and in clear eyed vision exposes the fault-lines in discourse that seek to erase us. Not only do the stories and images of SKIN’s community participants feature- written responses to the themes of “pride, power, permanence” will be tattooed to Ryan’s body live on stage by collaborator and “black collar worker”- tattoo artist Dani V. Complementing the performance, SKIN: THE EXHIBITION will feature the diverse stories and experiences of 5 community participants, alongside the inclusion of Ryan’s ‘self portrait’.
Imogen Kelly – Strip the Life Fantastic
The Motley Bauhaus: 31 January – 1 February
Australia’s undisputed Queen of Burlesque – and the world-crowned Miss Exotic World 2012 – Imogen Kelly returns with a groundbreaking new show that turns striptease into a game, autobiography into an interactive adventure, and the audience into gleeful co-conspirators. Strip The Life Fantastic is a true-story spectacular where every performance is different, shaped live by the crowd. Through outrageous games, choices, and dares, the audience decides which tales are unlocked: childhood revelations, underground queer rebellion, circus escapades, political activism, nude weddings in Tokyo, club-kid carnage in ’90s London, discovering she was intersex, becoming a mother while ruling the global burlesque stage, facing breast cancer, changing sex-industry laws… or maybe a cheeky striptease (or two) depending on how they play their cards.
Midsumma Pride March
Fitzroy Street, St Kilda: Sunday 1 February
Come and experience one of the biggest events on the Pride calendar. Midsumma Pride March summons a chorus of voices from across our queer communities and makes them visible; embodying a raucous, shared song that tells us we’re here, we’ve got each others’ backs, and we’re not going anywhere. The march kicks of at 10:30am and everyone is welcome to come and watch the parade go by! At the conclusion of the march the general public are invited to follow the final marchers into Catani Gardens to be greeted with free entertainment and festivities, including DJs and live performances by the iconic St Kilda beachside.
Victoria’s Pride Street Party
Gertrude and Smith Streets, Fitzroy: Sunday 8 February
The 5th edition of Victoria’s Pride Street Party will be back on Sunday 8 February – a celebration of progress, love, and diversity! Experience a full day of LGBTQIA+ art, live music, performances, community and culture, with stalls showcasing local treasures. Open to all – families, friends, and allies – there’s something for everyone, from morning to night. Close off your Midsumma Festival season with this vibrant party and take over the streets with us!
The 2026 Midsumma Festival runs Sunday 18 January – Sunday 8 February. For more information and full program, visit: www.midsumma.org.au for details.
Images: Midsumma Carnival – photo by Tom Noble | AFTERGLOW (New York production) – photo by Mati Gelman | Sebastian Li and Eddie Orton feature in Australian Open – photo by Tom Noble | Installation view of DIVA at Arts Centre Melbourne – photo by Astrid Mulder | If Queers Weren’t Meant to Have Kids – courtesy of University of Queensland Press (UQP) | Josh Moyes stars in Finding Glitter in the Storm (supplied) | Mama Alto – photo by Shawn Salley Photography | Milo Hartill – photo by Lazy Fair | Danish Sheikh – photo by Tom Noble | Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens – photo by Tansu Topuzoglu | Tomáš Kantor stars in Sugar – photo by James Reiser | Jessi Ryan – photo by Karen Bryant | Imogen Kelly stars in Strip The Life Fantastic – photo by Joel Devereux | Midsumma Pride March (supplied) | Victoria’s Pride Street Party (supplied)