Around Sydney

No Lights, No Lycra is an afterwork activity unlike any other. Beloved by its loyal followers for decades, this pitch black anonymous dance class is all about two things: total and unfettered freedom and the chance to seriously, seriously dance.  With locations all over the world, No Lights No Lycra has been bringing sweet tunes, sweat and a total lack of inhibition to people who are keen to boogie like nobody’s watching them for years. And for interested Sydneysiders, opportunities to let loose in the pitch dark are plentiful.  How does it work? You arrive (solo, or with whoever you want to bring as your anonymous dancing companion), enter a community hall, and dance for a good hour and a half to absolute bangers. The catch? It’s so dark you can’t see your feet.  The joy of this dance class is that it cuts out all the surface bullshit of judgement and fear and leaves space just for you, your joy and time for you to move your body in a way that thrills you, and you alone. In Sydney, there are weekly classes going down in Bondi, Newtown, Parramatta and Sutherland – plus a whole lot more. You can find out all the details of your closest local event by just typing in your location into their online interactive map.  Tickets generally seem to cost around the $10 to $15 mark for an hour or so, which feels pretty worth it to us, and you can book online through your location (which can be found using the aforementioned map). Forget Saturday nights and 79 tequila shots. No Lights...

If drinking Champagne while dancing on a superyacht fits on your 2026 vision board, we’ve got you. Following two super successful seasons at the start of 2024 and 2025,  The Jackson (arguably Sydney’s most Instagrammed luxury superyacht) is teaming up with Veuve Clicquot for another sparkling summer party series. The string of harbour parties will see the huge, sparkly-af boat play host to a stacked line-up of DJs across two expansive decks, with dancing fuel (read: Champagne and canapés) provided by Veuve Clicquot. Oysters, Champagne and hours of dancing to the backdrop of Sydney’s glittering harbour – it’s a pretty solid recipe. Kicking off on Saturday, January 10, The Jackson's Veuve Cliquot in the Sun will see DJs from Sydney and beyond take to the decks (pun intended) for high-energy, Champagne-fuelled afternoons. The events will run from 12pm until 4pm on Saturdays throughout January, February, March and April, and your $159 ticket will score you two glasses of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label, free-flowing canapés and oysters, plus four hours of dancing and a gelato for the journey back to dry land. Keen? You can learn more and secure your ticket over here. RECOMMENDED: Want fun now? These are the best things to do in Sydney this weekend And these affordable picnic boats are a more low-key boating optionWant the boat-owner life without the price tag? This subscription service might be the answer

Theatre fans, take note. Sydney Theatre Company – Sydney’s largest and most prominent theatre producer – has just dropped the details for its 2026 season. The beautifully varied 2026 season will comprise 13 productions, with more than 80 beloved and emerging performers set to take to the stage throughout the year. Following Kip Williams' departure from the company, the 2026 season will be the first curated by new Artistic Director Mitchell Butel, who joined STC in late 2025. Reflecting on what theatre-goers can expect in 2026, Butel described the 2026 program as a "season of dream teams: celebrating the diversity of Australian storytelling. Highlights from STC’s 2026 season will include three world premieres of brand-new Australian works, the Australian Premiere of the most awarded Broadway play of 2025, the Sydney premiere of a new Australian musical and a handful of other Australian and international plays. If you’re keen to see something new, get in line for the season’s key world premieres: Whispering Jack: The John Farnham Musical (from award-winning writer and director Jack Yabsley), Bennelong in London (by Jane Harrison, the brilliant playwright behind The Visitors and Stolen) and Strong is the New Pretty by Olivier Award-winning playwright Suzie Miller. Bennelong in London will be showing from July 24 until August 16 2026, Strong is the New Pretty will be playing from October 26 until December 5 2026, and Whispering Jack: The John Farnham Musical will be showing...

It’s that time of year again when Mardi Gras takes over Sydney, bringing with it the glittering cinematic showcase of LGBTQIA+ excellence that is the Mardi Gras Film Festival. Opening with the beautiful Australian film Jimpa, starring Olivia Colman, John Lithgow and Aud Mason-Hyde, there’s tonnes to see before the festival wraps two weeks later with American high school comedy She’s the He. Here are ten of our top picks: Pillion Thirsty Heated Rivalry fam, we know you’re checking out Alexander Skarsgård as a biker leather-clad dom in this smoking hot British debut feature. Loosely adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’ novella, Box Hill, by writer/director Harry Lighton, it’s astonishingly sexy, absurdly funny and achingly bittersweet. Harry Melling’s the revelation, as the sub drawn into a fetish scene he barely understands, but embraces with his whole body, in this sex-positive delight that’s also a Christmas movie. Yippee-ki-yay. The Chronology of Water Another literary adaptation, this one marks the Cannes-berthing directorial debut of Personal Shopper star Kristen Stewart. Blown away by would-be-swimmer-turned-author and academic Lidia Yuknavitch’s powerfully raw memoir, Stewart made it her mission to bring it to life as a formally daring, non-linear fever of a film. Led by a towering performance from Imogen Poots, as a bisexual woman and addict attempting to rebuild her life after shocking childhood abuse, it’s a tough, but emotionally rewarding watch. The Serpent’s Skin...

Sailing obsessives, speed demons and sunset enthusiasts, listen up. The world’s fastest sailing race – the Sail Grand Prix – is returning to the Harbour City for 2026, and this time it’s levelling up the cinematic value. For the first time in Rolex SailGP Championship history, the spectacle is going twilight – with super-fast foiling action lighting up Sydney Harbour for two adrenaline-fuelled nights on the last weekend of February.Now in its seventh consecutive year, Sydney remains SailGP’s longest-running stop – and honestly, it’s hard to imagine a better stage. Picture the world’s largest SailGP fleet ever assembled flying across the water in colourful catamarans just metres from shore, as the late summer sun melts behind the city skyline. Not sold yet on the idea of watching a boat race? I hear you – as a sailing novice and a card-carrying F1-skeptic, it took a trip to the Auckland event for me to truly understand the appeal of the KPMG Sydney Sail Grand Prix, but I can wholeheartedly say it’s one of the most exciting, impressive sporting events you will ever witness. One of the things that makes SailGP races so addictive is how close you can get to the action, and never more so than in Sydney. Here, racing unfolds right across the harbour, with various vantage points turning the city into a giant grandstand. The mixed-gender teams are wildly athletic, and the fact that the Aussies happen to be consistently high-achievers (winning the first three championships, and...