Around Melbourne

This beloved First Nations event is back for its fifth iteration, with the 2025 program – the festival's most ambitious to date – exploring the powerful anchors of legacy, joy, reclamation and akin. 'Yirramboi', which translates to 'tomorrow' in the local languages of the Boonwurrung and Woi-wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nations, will take over Melbourne (Naarm) from May 1-11.  This main hive of activity for this year’s festival will centre around the Uncle Jack Charles event space – named after the late Aboriginal actor, activist and great arts Elder. Located in the Malthouse Theatre and Chunky Move, the space will be transformed by installations and performances, including five world premieres and two international works. The festival platforms expressions of culture, identity, unity and truth – and encourages the breaking away from preconceived ideas of First Nations 'art' via experimental practices.  Some of the program highlights include Holding Space, a deeply moving exhibition that invites audiences to reflect on resilience and the enduring ties that bind people to place; The Black Woman of Gippsland, a thrilling theatrical exploration of Victoria's dark past; and banj ba walert: water and possum, a world premiere led by Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Vicki Nicholson-Brown and Wurundjeri, Dja Dja Wurrung and Ngurai Illum-Wurrung woman Stacie Piper that reawakens and renews the cultural practice of possum skin drumming.  And don't miss the bottomless drag brunch at Mabu Mabu...

Calling all bookworms, literature lovers and BookTok obsessives: the Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) line-up has just been unveiled. This year’s program reads like a list of the crème de la crème of the 2025 literary world, featuring New York Times best-selling authors, Booker Prize standouts, first-timers and MWF exclusives. The festival will spread big bookish energy across the city and surrounds via four days of workshops, talks, events and panels, running from May 8-11. This time around, the central theme of the program is 'Magical Thinking' – which will explore the power of storytelling as a transformative force and celebrate the magic that lingers long after the final page.  International highlights include Irish authors Marian Keyes and Colm Tóibín; 2024 Booker Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, who will open the festival with a star-studded panel discussion; and UK philosopher AC Grayling, who will tackle the topic on everybody’s lips: the culture wars.  On the local front, catch writers, friends and co-authors Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland sit down to discuss brain health with host Clare Bowditch; listen as Jimmy Barnes recounts the his larger-than-life adventures; or see five First Nations women showcase their artistic practices in writing, poetry, music, performance and art for Blak Magic Women. “Across four packed days this May, some of Australia and the world’s most brilliant and incisive writers and thinkers will gather in our City of Literature to celebrate...

There's no better time of year for Melbourne's beer lovers than the autumnal months of April and May. We've got GABS. The Aussie International Beer Awards. And of course, Pint of Origin: the ten-day event that turns the entire city into a brew-tiful playground.  Running from May 9-18 this year, the 2025 edition of Pint of Origin promises to showcase the biggest collection of beers at any one festival. First conceived in 2012 by the folks at local craft beer publication the Crafty Pint, IT will soon be popping up at some of our favourite pubs and bars around the city, and we can't wait to taste the wacky and wonderful creations on offer across the week. Wondering how the event works? It's simple: across the ten days, around 800 beers from more than 200 breweries will hit the taps at 23 Melbourne venues. Each venue's mission is clear: to host a different region of Australia or part of the world for ten days.   Participating venues will run pairing events, themed tap takeovers, degustations, launch parties and opportunities to meet the brewers. Safe to say, there'll be no shortage of beer-soaked events throughout the program to take your fancy.  Pint of Origin 2025 Melbourne venues: The tap dancers from Beermash in Collingwood will be pouring Scandinavian beers. Benchwarmer in West Melbourne is showcasing Japanese and Korean brewers. Our friends at Bridge Road Brewers in Brunswick will be spotlighting Victorian beers from regional destinations. Aye-aye, Captain Melville will...

The ninth edition of Melbourne Design Week will bring 11 days of exhibitions, talks and workshops to the city in late autumn. More than 350 inventive events will be presented during the festival, cementing its status as Australia’s largest annual design event. Each year brings a new theme for Melbourne Design Week and this year’s is ‘Design The World You Want’. The theme is designed to encourage people to express, question, propose and test ideas about the world around us. Projects involved might offer solutions that heal, replenish and enable life, revealing design as an act of repair and transformation. Highlights include A New Normal, an exhibition featuring a collection of designs to make Melbourne a self-sufficient city by 2030; a retrospective of lighting designer Volker Haug; a spectacular showcase of 100 dazzling and avant-garde contemporary lights at North Melbourne's Meat Market Stables; and presentations by leading showrooms, studios and makers like Trent Jansen, Jessie French, Fiona Lynch, Cult and more. The Melbourne Art Book Fair will also be celebrating its 11th year, and will run its popular stallholder fair in the NGV’s Great Hall from May 15-17.  Melbourne Design Week is presented by Creative Victoria and delivered by the NGV. You can view the full festival program and book tickets here. Inspired by the book fair? Check out the best independent bookstores in Melbourne.

As a chill settles over the city each winter, Rising returns with a nocturnal vengeance. This year, the much-loved arts festival will take place across twelve nights from June 4-15, with a red-hot program featuring 65 events, 327 artists and nine world premieres. Musical highlights include an exclusive Australian performance by British indie-pop girlie Suki Waterhouse; a one-off show by Beth Gibbons of Portishead fame, who will bring her haunting solo album Lives Outgrown to Hamer Hall; and Brooklyn rap legends Black Star (aka Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli) live on stage in Melbourne for the first time ever. Joining them on the line-up will also be Japanese Breakfast, Marlon Williams and Mount Kimbie. Flinders Street Station will double as a mini golf course when Swingers – The Art of Mini Golf takes over. This immersive (and fully playable) exhibition will include works by some of the world’s most dynamic and boundary-pushing female-identifying artists. The Capitol Theatre will also be transformed thanks to a massive kinetic light installation by Shohei Fujimoto. If it's a break from the hustle and bustle of life you're after, Korean artist Woopsyang's viral “do nothing” challenge comes to QV Square, inviting participants to sit in total stillness for 90 minutes.   On the theatre front, don't miss the cult classic Hedwig and The Angry Inch, starring Sean Miley Moore; Monolith, a new major dance work by Wiradjuri artist Joel Bray; and The Wrong Gods by S. Shakthidharan, the...