Garreth Van Niekerk

Easter 2026 is officially here, and if you’re not part of the masses joining the annual "Easter Exodus" for a quick break at the coast or the mountains, you’ve picked a fantastic year to stay behind. While the highways might be buzzing with travellers, Johannesburg is pulling out all the stops to ensure those remaining in the golden city are spoilt for choice. From the quiet, leafy suburbs to the high-energy hubs of the north, the city is vibrating with a unique holiday energy that balances refined indulgence with pure, unadulterated family fun. Whether you're looking for mind-bending illusions in Rosebank, a massive open-air Easter market, or a sophisticated chocolate degustation in the heart of Sandton, a curated experience awaits around every corner. Grab your diary and clear your schedule; here are the best ways to spend your Easter break in and around Johannesburg. RECOMMENDED 📍 The best things to do in Johannesburg🛏️ Where to stay in Johannesburg🏨 The best hotels in Johannesburg🍽 The best restaurants in Johannesburg🍺 The best pubs and bars in Johannesburg Follow Time Out Johannesburg on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram!

What’s Parkhurst known for? Joburg isn’t exactly a walking city, so when a neighbourhood makes strolling feel effortless, the city shows up in its finery. Parkhurst is that kind of place. A proper high street with energy, a steady hum of vibes, and just enough people-watching to make you forget you arrived with an agenda. At its heart is 4th Avenue, a strip that knows how to play every part: weekday cappuccino run, weekend brunch, sneaky mid-afternoon browse, and a night out that starts with dinner and ends somewhere rambunctious. It is also one of the rare pockets of Johannesburg where you can park once, put your phone away, and let the day unfold without planning every stop. Parkhurst is neighbourhood-y, but it knows how to turn it on. Indie boutiques sit happily alongside institutions. Courtyards hide behind shopfronts. Tables spill onto pavements. Dogs have main-character energy. And at any time of day, you will find people doing the simple stuff well: meeting friends, shopping properly, walking off lunch, and treating themselves like it’s a civic duty. How do I get to Parkhurst? Parkhurst sits neatly in the middle of the Parks, so it’s an easy hop from Rosebank and Sandton, and close enough to Greenside and Melville that you can stitch together a day across neighbourhoods without much effort. The simplest approach is to aim for 4th Avenue, then move on foot. Arrive early on weekends if you want easy parking, especially around the breakfast rush. Once you’re in, the whole

Johannesburg’s art scene isn’t gathered neatly in one district. It’s spread across the city in a handful of easy-to-tackle hubs, where galleries, museums, studios, bookshops and good places to eat sit close enough together to make a proper day of it. Start in Rosebank if you want the shiny version, head north and west for something a little quieter and more contemplative, then save the inner city for when you’re in the mood for something a little less tidy and a lot more Johannesburg. RECOMMENDED 📍 The best things to do in Johannesburg🛏️ Where to stay in Johannesburg🏨 The best hotels in Johannesburg🍽 The best restaurants in Johannesburg🍺 The best pubs and bars in Johannesburg  Time Out makes a small commission from the affiliate links included in this article. These links have no influence on our editorial content, but they do help us to bring you more recommendations every week. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines.

What’s Melville known for? Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Melville gets a bad rap. There’s no shortage of think-pieces mourning the suburb’s “decline” as Joburg’s former nightlife, culinary and entertainment hub. Falling apart this, unsafe that, we miss the old days, blah blah blah. But here’s the thing: Melville has always been a shapeshifter. It reinvents itself, tests its edges, quietens down, then surprises you again. So enough of that. Ask anyone from the ‘Ville today (insider’s tip: residents and business owners love it when you do), and you’ll hear a familiar line, delivered with a cheeky smile: “You know, Melville, it goes through its ups and downs…” And yet, spend an afternoon on the streets, and it’s hard not to notice its current glow-up. Sidewalks get swept. Local security is visible. The hanging lights have become their own little moment. New openings pop up where you swear nothing existed last month. The suburb feels awake again, not in a nostalgic way, but like a place that still has ideas and life to put forward. What makes Melville special is the mix. It’s a neighbourhood where you can start with a proper lunch, drift into a gallery, buy a book you didn’t know you needed, and end the night in a bar you probably shouldn’t tell your mother about. You have some of the city’s most exciting new eateries (from seasoned restaurateurs, to names you’ll be hearing more of), a growing gallery circuit (if you haven’t done the

Autumn is a very good time to go out in Johannesburg. The evenings are cooler, the leaves start dropping (helping the city itself look a little brighter after dark), and, best of all, the theatres and music venues start launching their most wonderful shows. April still has a strong run of live entertainment left, with all sorts of family musicals, serious theatre, big-budget stage spectacles and, as Joburg does so well, a welcome lineup of excellent jazz. Here are our picks for the rest of April you shouldn’t miss. Shrek the Musical JR  Monday-Sunday, 19 April | 9 am & 11 am Location: The People's Theatre Cost: R180 via Webtickets If you have children or are being useful to someone who does, this is the perfect outing. Shrek The Musical Jr. runs at the People’s Theatre until April 19, bringing all the familiar swamp-dwelling chaos crew with it. Expect the usual fairytale inversions, broad comedy and enough stagecraft to keep younger audiences, and even their jaded caretakers, locked in. It’s a classic People's Theatre production, so lots of fun.   The People's Theatre   Under the Shade of a Tree I Sat and Wept at The Market Theatre Wednesday-Sunday, 19 April  Location: The Market Theatre Cost: R110 via Webtickets The Market Theatre has one of the month’s most acclaimed productions on its hands with Under the Shade of a Tree I Sat and Wept, running from April 9 to 19. The play draws together South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and reconciliation processe

If the last few years of design have felt a bit like a performance of productivity, Decorex Africa 2026 wants to offer something else. This year’s edition, built around the theme “Soft Life”, is less about hard-edged aspiration and more about how we actually want to live now: more comfortably, more beautifully, and ideally with less noise. Returning to Johannesburg, Decorex remains South Africa’s, and the continent’s, biggest design showcase, and this year the scale sounds as expansive as ever. The 2026 edition promises more than 600 exhibitors, a strong mix of furniture, lighting, kitchens, bathrooms and lifestyle brands, plus the usual crowd-pulling installations and feature spaces. There’ll also be design restaurants, DIY renovation workshops, live cooking studios and new work from this year’s Designers of the Year, alongside a broad showing of contemporary African brands and makers. The Soft Life theme gives the show a useful lens rather than just a slogan. It suggests a shift away from interiors as what people are calling ‘status theatre’ and towards spaces that support rest, ease and daily ritual. That doesn’t mean bland minimalism or beige-on-beige decor, the show’s directors say. If anything, they argue, it opens the door to a more layered idea of luxury: tactile materials, intelligent layouts, atmosphere, and the kinds of objects that make a home feel considered without feeling strained. Cape Town gets the first look, with Decorex landing at the CTICC from June 25

If you’re an emerging musician looking for a platform, Fête de la Musique wants to hear from you. The long-running free festival, now in its 15th year, has officially opened applications for its 2026 Johannesburg and Pretoria editions, giving musicians, bands, DJs and poets the chance to perform at one of the city’s most reliable showcases for new talent. The Johannesburg edition takes place at Victoria Yards on Saturday, June 20, following Pretoria on June 13 as part of the wider national programme. In a city with no shortage of gigs, it continues to stand out by doing something refreshingly simple: backing emerging artists, keeping things accessible and giving audiences a genuine shot at discovering what’s next. Connected to new sounds across South Africa For Aysha Waja of the French Institute of South Africa, that’s exactly why the festival has lasted. “The main aim of Fête de la Musique in South Africa is to support emerging South African musicians,” she says. “It keeps us connected to fresh talent and new sounds across South Africa.” “By staying true to this approach, we’re able to reflect the incredible talent that young South Africans have,” says Waja. “It’s why Fête de la Musique is still such an important festival and remains such a significant highlight in the JHB cultural calendar.” As the festival expands across Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town, its inaugural Cape Town edition takes place on 29 March. IFAS is making its free, open model available to more peop

Melville’s always been good at reinvention. It’s carried the city through decades of late nights, first dates, student misadventures, and the kind of after-hours stories that start with “you won’t believe what happened last night…”. But in recent years, the narrative has hardened into something flatter and less fair: Melville is unsafe; Melville is only for students; Melville isn’t what it used to be. Aubrey Moloto is trying to change that story, not with a statement, but with an experience you can actually walk. The Melville Art Mile is a monthly First Thursday event built around Melville’s famous 7th Avenue, designed to celebrate the suburb’s creative heritage and - crucially - rebalance who shows up and how they move through the neighbourhood. “We’re trying to shift the narrative that Melville isn’t safe at night and is too student-focused,” Moloto says in an interview with Time Out. The goal isn’t to sand down Melville’s edge or energy, but to draw back “a more diverse, mature, and higher-end crowd to correct the balance slightly”. The spark came after a trip to Cape Town, where Moloto felt the pull of First Thursdays and saw how whole neighbourhoods can become shared public space for one night every month. “I thought, Melville can do that,” he says. “We’ve got this leafy, walkable residential side with home studios and a strong business node, so all the ingredients are there.” He’d already been speaking with gallery owners about building a forum or association. The trip