The best things to do in Melbourne this Queen’s Birthday long weekend

Arriving just in time for Christmas in July, Disney’s smash-hit Broadway musical Frozen is swooshing in from Sydney to make Melbourne as frosty as Arendelle. Icing up Her Majesty’s Theatre this June with whizz-bang tricks and astounding puppets in the mix, this spectacular stage adaptation features all the beloved songs ready for exciting sing-alongs plus brand-new tunes from original songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. Melbourne performances of Frozen the Musical commence on Friday, June 25.

To usher in the start of the Christmas season, many towns in Germany host a winter market where you can drink freshly brewed beers and feast on hot sausages and slices of apple strudel. Hofbräuhaus, Melbourne’s very own German bier hall, is partnering with Burnley Brewing to present a German-style winter market pop-up event on Chapel Street.

Magic Mike Live opens this week in Melbourne following a postponement due to Melbourne's latest lockdown. The show is the brainchild of dancer-turned-movie star Channing Tatum – who fronted up, stripped down, and sweated through both big-screen outings – who had been set to bring the buff boy acrobatic spectacular strip show to the Victorian capital in 2020. While Sydney has now seen the show first, we're still on track to get up close and personal with these hunky dancers. 

The NGV's Friday Nights series is back for another round, and this time they’re pairing a string of gigs alongside the highly anticipated exhibition French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Performing in the NGV's Great Hall every Friday night from June to early October, this season's line-up will feature the likes of Alice Ivy, Husky, Eilish Gilligan, Ali Barter, Squid Nebula, Akosia, Soloman Sisay and heaps more.

A Miracle Constantly Repeated has artist Patricia Piccinini transform the enigmatic Flinders Street Ballroom into an uncanny art ecosystem filled with large-scale dioramas, huge foliage, sentient saplings and nurturing marine mammals. Those familiar with the artist's work will know what to expect, but for those who aren't, you'll meet some unusual creatures that blur the lines between human and beast. 

If you binged waaaaaaay too much Scandi noir from your sofa last year, then it’s time to put some proper clothes on, head out and do it on the big screen instead as the Scandinavian Film Festival returns this July. Read more for the program and to read about the films being screened. 

Now showing at the NGV's Ian Potter Centre is Maree Clarke: Ancestral Memories, the first major retrospective of Melbourne-based Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung artist and designer Maree Clarke. The exhibition, which is currently on until October 3, shows more than three decades worth of work from Clarke that spans photography, printmaking, sculpture, jewellery, video and more. Entry is free.

Located on the ground floor, Plans for the Planet is free to enter and runs until October 3. The installation is populated with Breuning’s illustrations and characters, including a forest and a floor of lava, and utilises engaging multimedia activities to inspire children to think about issues like the environment, pollution and wildlife.

From July 17 to August 1, you’ve been invited to fill your belly and warm yourself up with the finest winemakers across Yarra Valley. After going virtual for 2020, Fireside is back with a 16-day programme filled with winemaker dinners, fireside brunches, pizza parties, cooking classes and more.

Every weekend, the lawn of Arts Centre Melbourne comes alive with market stalls selling everything from handmade leather wallet to locally made art by the city's designers and small business owners. 

Situated a short walk from Flinders Street Station, everything on offer at the market has been locally made, and the market also features a great range of food stalls if you want to shake up your weekend brunch.

If you’ve ever watched the films Her or Ex Machina you’ll know how easily the lines between AI and humans can blur and how harrowing that can be. 

Scienceworks’ latest exhibition Born or Built? explores how sophisticated robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) have become, how easily they can mimic human beings, and delves into the evolution of technology.  

Cabaret performers Queens of the Damned are putting on a pirate-themed dinner theatre production, fresh off a very popular run at Old Melbourne Gaol. This performance takes place across four different rooms in the 100-year-old Mission to Seafarers.

For every Saturday in July from noon to 5pm, Pontoon invites you to bust your wintertime blues with bottomless drinks and a main each for $65 per person.

Located within the much-loved Stokehouse Precinct in St Kilda, this eatery offers gorgeous views overlooking the bay, and during its bottomless sessions you can kick back and listen to resident DJs while sipping on endless cocktails, beer, wine, and bubbles. 

Vipoo Srivilasa's porcelain sculptures might be made of the same material as your nana's best crockery, but that's about where the similarities end. The Thai-born, Melbourne-based ceramic artist has a knack for creating sculptural works that don't take themselves too seriously, and that's as apparent as ever in his new exhibition, Wellness Deity.

Some of the most well-known Australian Impressionist paintings are currently front and centre at the Ian Potter Centre. She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism brings together nearly 300 Australian Impressionist paintings from the likes of Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Jane Sutherland, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Clara Southern and John Russell.

Darkfield Radio uses the power of cleverly created soundscapes and your own imagination to bring terrifying scenarios to life. This one, called Knot, is meant to be listened to in three separate locations: on a park bench, in your car and at home. The audio is so cleverly recorded you'll swear someone really is sitting next to you whispering in your ear, or walking up behind you, getting closer.

Every third Saturday of the month, enthusiasm for high quality local produce runs like electricity at this Port Melbourne arts space, and your tastebuds will feel it too. Grab a fresh, crusty baguette to go with your market haul salad for later, stock up on seasonal produce and a treat or two for afternoon tea (handmade chocolate biscuits, anyone?).The Gasworks Farmers' Market is plastic free so make sure to bring your reusable bags, baskets and coffee cups. 

If you've ever wondered about how so much street art appears in Melbourne, who's creating it, and how, then Melbourne Street Tours is your best port of call. These street art walking tours are run by actual practising street artists, so you're getting the low down straight from the artist's mouth so to speak. 

Arguably Australia's most famous performative artist, Mike Parr is transforming Anna Schwartz Gallery as part of his new solo exhibition Half Way House. Over the course of three months, Parr – aka the guy who lived under a Hobart road for Dark Mofo – is presenting four blind peformative works and installations at the Flinders Lane gallery.

What’s better than gorging yourself on scones, finger sandwiches and Champagne at a regular high tea? Gorging yourself on piles and piles of cheese at the Westin’s un-brie-lievable High Cheese event.

Punters can take a 30-minute ride in a private, heated glass cabin and curl up on a comfy bean bag while they do it. Plus,  warm mulled wine and a cheese platter complete with croutes, muscatel grapes and quince paste is on offer.

There have been many exhibitions on Mirka Mora, but none quite like this. The Jewish Museum of Australia has announced Mirka: the most extensive survey of Mirka Mora ever. The museum has been turned into an “immersive Mirka-world” for the exhibition, which features never-before-exhibited works from the Mora family and Mirka’s studio archives. 

Some of London's Natural History Museum’s oldest, rarest and strangest items are in Melbourne from June 2021. Treasures of the Natural World features 200+ items from the Natural History Museum’s enormous (and world-famous) collection. Every item holds some kind of significance within our understanding of the natural world. 

Performances of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child have resumed following Melbourne's latest lockdown. This whopper two-part play is the eighth chapter of JK Rowling's saga, following the children of now-grown Harry, Ron and Hermione. Click through to read our (spoiler-free!) review of the play.

French Impressionism is host to arguably some of the most famous (and most loved) artists of all time. Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Van Gogh and Degas are just some of the artists who achieved such acclaim that they remain household names even a century after their deaths. From June 25, you can see some of the artist's most beautiful and well-known works at the NGV's new Winter Masterpieces exhibition, French Impressionism: From the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Ready to get out of the big city? Try tackle one of these day hikes near Melbourne. Regional Victoria is brimming with picturesque walks great for getting your heart pumping including local wonders and seaside spectacles. Remember: always be prepared when hiking and bring plenty of water, snacks and wear sturdy shoes.  

There’s been a lot of hype about Because the Night, Malthouse Theatre’s new production where the audience can freely explore an immersive set while the cast perform around them. Ushers provide each person with a dark robe and Donnie Darko-style black rabbit mask to cover their face – apart from serving to differentiate audience from cast, the costume immediately puts visitors in the right headspace; goodbye Melbourne, hello Elsinore. 

Spanish artist Franciso Goya is considered one of the country's most eminent artists, with his romanticism paintings (often portraits or religious scenes) earning him great acclaim. You can explore more than 160 drawings from Goya at the NGV as part of Goya: Drawings from the Prado Museum. This world-exclusive exhibition marks the largest ever collection of Goya drawings ever to be shown in Australia.

What could be better than huge hair, drag performances and club bangers? What about if you threw in unlimited booze? And had all that at breakfast time?

Coinciding with the airing of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under, the Smith is running a bottomless drag brunch every Sunday from noon to 2pm, and then again from 3 to 5pm (which, yes, we admit is not breakfast time anymore, even on a Sunday).

ACMI is currently showing a huge 90-year showcase of Disney animation with a glimpse behind the scenes at Walt Disney Animation Studios, one of the world’s most prolific animation studios. Now open, the exhibition features over 500 original artworks that date from the 1920s to the present day, including sketches and concept art from Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie to new release Raya and the Last Dragon. 

The glory and pain of our formative years never leave us. The awkwardness, the heartache, the moments of soaring joy and the losses that crushed us often feel as real as the day they happened. The Immigration Museum is now plumbing these universal experiences in an immersive exhibition that’ll have you feeling the entire spectrum of human emotion.

When the Rain Stops Falling, a play written by Andrew Bovell (Lantana) and first performed in 2008, turns the magical lens on to the issue of the past decade: climate change. Now, the play is rearing its head in the fraught context of 2021 with a production from Iron Lung Theatre and Theatre Works, directed by Briony Dunn and starring Francis Greenslade.

Vipoo Srivilasa's porcelain sculptures might be made of the same material as your nana's best crockery, but that's about where the similarities end. The Thai-born, Melbourne-based ceramic artist has a knack for creating sculptural works that don't take themselves too seriously, and that's as apparent as ever in his new exhibition, Wellness Deity.

Grab a beret and practice your best Audrey Tautou impression because Federation Square is turning French this winter – celebrating the joie de vivre the country is famous for across six weeks of events, activities and exhibitions. Melbourne’s famous square will become a bastion of French history, art, music, cinema, food and fine wine from Bastille day on July 14 through to early September. 

The weather has long been the go-to topic, especially in Melbourne (talk about four seasons in one day, am I right?). The weather is more than just small talk, however – it is intrinsically linked to the climate and the environment. Big Weather explores Australia's weather – and specifically the knowledge, stories and perspectives on the weather as told by First Nations artists. 

You may remember this outdoor pop-up from way back in winter 2019. Thankfully, this winter is looking up with the Winter Village's (faux) snow-covered activation landing back in town from May 13 to August 29. And the village has been able to reopen for the June long weekend with both igloo dining and ice skating sessions available.

Whether you're a fan of Captain Jack Sparrow or the guy who tells Tom Hanks, "I am the captain now," we're pretty sure you haven't seen pirates like these before. Cabaret performers Queens of the Damned are putting on a pirate-themed dinner theatre production, fresh off a very popular run at Old Melbourne Gaol. This performance takes place across four different rooms in the 100-year-old Mission to Seafarers.

Victorian Opera has had to cancel its in-person season of Parrwang Lifts the Sky due to lockdown restrictions. However, the production will still be able to be watched online from June 19. If you hold tickets for an in-person performance, you can opt to have them refunded, or convert them into digital access tickets. 

You're sitting on a park bench listening to your headphones when a woman comes up to you asking for help. She is wearing a coat that's too big for her, and she doesn't remember how she got there. Are these cigarettes in her pockets hers? What does the alarm on her watch mean? And wait... what's in the box? Knot is the latest audio production from Darkfield Radio, the team behind immersive soundscape experiences Séance and Flight.

Some of the most well-known Australian Impressionist paintings are currently front and centre at the Ian Potter Centre. She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism brings together nearly 300 Australian Impressionist paintings from the likes of Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Jane Sutherland, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Clara Southern and John Russell.

Works featured in the exhibition include what are easily some of the most recognisable Australian paintings, including Tom Roberts' 'Shearing the Rams' and Jane Sutherland's 'Field naturalists'. The exhibition also highlights the works of female artists like Iso Rae, Ina Gregory and Jane Price. 

The exhibition will span the range of Impressionist styles seen in Australia, including the works of Melbourne's famous Heidelberg school. She-Oak and Sunlight also features 50 works that were presented in the 1889 exhibition, 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition (named for the size of the artworks, which were largely painted on the lids of cigar boxes). 

She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism is on at the Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia from April 2 until August 22. Tickets are $26 for general entry. 

For a breath of fresh air, head out of the city this weekend with our guide to Melbourne’s best day hikes. From local wonders to seaside spectacles, regional Victoria is brimming with picturesque walks great for getting your heart pumping.