Things to do in Sydney today

The state’s largest independent arts festival, Sydney Fringe Festival, is back for 2025 – with more than 460 events hitting our stages for one very entertaining month. Presented across the city throughout September 2025, the dynamic program spans theatre, music, comedy, visual art, film, musical theatre, dance, circus, street festivals, literature and poetry – and it's going to be ace. Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney, says: “The Fringe is as diverse as our city – and I’m very proud of that.” This year, Sydney Fringe Festival is presenting a city-wide playground of entertainment, with ten key hubs hosting immersive theatre shows, boundary-pushing cabaret, comedy galas, dance shows, live music performances and so much more. Time Out's picks: 10 of the best shows to see at Sydney Fringe Festival 2025Spanning a full four weeks from now until September 30, the Sydney Fringe program includes a heap of interactive, community-focused events, including a free street party taking over The Rocks on Thursday, September 4 and a child-friendly ‘Kids Fringe’ popping up in The Entertainment Quarter for the school holidays.  You can learn more and plan your Sydney Fringe experience over here. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Sydney newsletter for more news, straight to your inbox. RECOMMENDED:  Want fun now? Here’s what’s on in Sydney this weekend. In the mood for a show? Here’s our list of the best theatre to see in Sydney this month.

Didn’t make it to Rome this Euro summer? Us neither. And in excellent news for art enthusiasts of the Harbour City, one of Europe’s most famous and beloved cultural sites is coming to us. From Friday, August 29, the Sistine Chapel will come to life in Sydney thanks to an immersive multisensory experience. For context, the Sistine Chapel is a world-famous Renaissance chapel in the Vatican City, celebrated not only as the Pope’s private chapel but also as an artistic masterpiece – with Michelangelo’s famous painting The Last Judgment framing the ceiling, and other masterpieces lining the walls. The 15th century chapel attracts millions of visitors every year, but if you’re not up for facing the crowds in Italy, you can get a taste of the space right here. Opening soon in Sydney’s Fever Pavilion, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition will bring the Renaissance masterpiece to life. Inside the Sydney Showground Pavilion, 34 of Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes from the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel will be recreated in true-to-size scale. Masters of immersion Fever will use a specially developed printing technique that mirrors the texture, colour, and detail of the original works. While nothing quite compares to the real thing, the Sydney-based iteration of the chapel comes without the crowds and access-restricting scaffolding of the Roman version, allowing up-close encounters with the artwork. So far, the exhibition has mesmerised art lovers around the world – popping up in...

Scrap the seat and get moving at this interactive theatre show that engages all your senses, including taste, with cocktail (and mocktail) tastings embedded into the show. Imagine a theatre production, your favourite dimly lit bar and a haunted house (just way less scary, and heaps more playful) all rolled into one.  Setting up camp at the Union Bond Store in The Rocks this August and September, When Night Comes is part of Sydney Fringe Festival’s ‘Sideshow at The Rocks’ hub. You’ll follow performers between multiple rooms, each with a setting more hedonistic and sensory than the last. Your ticket includes a number of cocktails tastings, plus some gold-star entertainment, of course. Not a big alcohol drinker? You can still get involved by selecting the mocktail option when you check out.  Catch When Night Comes at Union Bond Store from August 22. Find out more here and book your tickets here. 

If you’re missing the sparkly lights of Vivid, we’ve got good news. For a full month this spring, a beautiful heritage-listed property in Sydney’s northwest will be illuminated by an immersive light show that will transport you back in time. Transforming the grounds of Bella Vista Farm, Echoes – Luna Light Journey will recreate the sights and sounds of the 1700s working farm, taking Sydneysiders on a magical immersive journey. Celebrating the stories that form the area’s complex history – from the Dharug people’s study of the stars to the seeding of the citrus orchard by early settlers – Echoes will momentarily transport you away from 2025. Keen? Read on. Brought to life by Dural-based international events company Laservision (the people behind some of the world’s most spectacular immersive light shows, including Imagine in Dubai, Wonder Full in Singapore, and Nocturnal in the NSW Blue Mountains), the multi-sensory experience will feature reimagined convict roads and fluorescent flower fields. To keep you energised, food trucks will be on-site offering street food-style eats all evening long. You’ll find some parking on-site, but the organisers suggest catching the metro to Bella Vista or Norwest metro stations and walking to the farm (the walk to the farm from each station is around 15 minutes). Kicking off on Friday, September 5, the event will run every night until Monday, October 6. Entry times will run every 15 minutes from 6.15pm, and the organisers suggest allowing...

I last watched the film adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley in the summer of 2023 – the summer that Saltburn hit our screens and mesmerised us all with its intoxicating, messed-up depiction of a complex, envy-ridden friendship. Saltburn director Emerald Fennell came under a lot of flak for what many people viewed as a barefaced rip-off of Patricia Highsmith’s beloved 1950s novel. And though the people wielding that claim have a point (Saltburn seems to borrow a lot from Ripley: the dynamic between the protagonists, the complexity and nuance of a minor class divide, even the sexy bathtub scene), the more I watch both, the more I’m reminded that this is a story as old as time. In both Saltburn and The Talented Mr Ripley, we see a starry-eyed boy driven to the furthest extremes by a toxic curdle of admiration, lust, and hatred. It’s a story that’s played out in literature forever, with characters in Greek mythology, Roman comedy, and Shakespearean tragedy all following similar journeys of envy, deceit, and attempts at stolen identity. In Sydney Theatre Company’s new production of The Talented Mr Ripley, the story is executed with masterful comic brilliance and a chilling, sociopathic undertone. As an audience, you’re carried on an all-consuming journey by characters you learn to hate but root for all the same.  What’s the premise of The Talented Mr Ripley? The play follows the slightly awkward, desperately socially unsatisfied Tom Ripley (whose status anxiety is perfectly...