Max your summer in Sydney

If your idea of a perfect Sydney afternoon involves a swim, a Spritz and front-row harbour views, we’ve got you. After a v successful launch season last summer, Pier One’s pop-up pool is back: this time with a Amalfi-coded makeover.  Live until the end of April, this sun-soaked floating pontoon invites guests to swim, drink and socialise right on the water. Open daily from 11am to 4pm, the pastel pink installation has transformed the hotel’s waterfront into a breezy harbour-side hangout with big beach club energy. Set just steps from Pier Bar (which, btw, serves an excellent happy hour), the netted pontoon pool serves up shark-safe harbour swims, with loungers waiting for post-dip cocktails and Euro-inspired snacks. Access to the pool is included with food and drink purchases from the bar – the perfect excuse to linger over a long lunch by the water. With gorgeous views across the harbour to Walsh Bay, last year’s pool was pretty enough, but this year they’ve seriously levelled up. The space has been styled in partnership with Australian outdoor lifestyle brand Business & Pleasure Co., whose retro-inspired umbrellas and loungers give the pontoon a luxe, hyper femme coastal aesthetic. Pier Bar’s coastal-inspired menu can be ordered to your lounger, so there’s really no need to change out of your bikini all afternoon. Our top pick from the menu? The bay bug ‘Big Mac’ sliders are a playful upmarket take on the Maccas icon, and bloody delicious after a day spent in and out of...

The Biennale of Sydney returns for its 25th edition from March 14 to June 14, 2026 – and, as always, it’s completely free. Titled Rememory, this year’s festival is curated by internationally renowned artistic director Hoor Al Qasimi. Inspired by the writing of Toni Morrison, the theme explores how memory and history shape who we are. Through powerful artworks from Australia and around the world, artists reflect on their roots to connect with communities by telling their stories. At its heart, Rememory shines a light on voices that haven’t always been heard. It highlights First Nations stories, diverse diasporas and the layered histories that have shaped Australia.  As Australia’s largest contemporary art event, the Biennale stretches across five major venues: White Bay Power Station, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Lewers: Penrith Regional Gallery. Extra talks, performances and events will pop up across Greater Sydney, with a big opening night concert, Lights On, kicking things off at White Bay Power Station on March 13. This year's festival features 83 collaborations from artists across 37 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, India, Lebanon, Argentina and Ethiopia. Expect large-scale installations, immersive works and site-specific pieces from both international and Australian artists. A major highlight is the Ngurrara Canvas II at the Art Gallery of NSW – an 80-square-metre...

The question of meaning has long shaped the human condition, at once a source of existential anxiety and a catalyst for some of the world’s most powerful artistic expression. For some, purpose is not pursued but inherited – something life quietly unfolds in its own time, revealing itself only in hindsight. For others, it is a relentless obsession, a restlessness that has driven monks, scholars and countless others towards faith, philosophy and protest in the hope of naming and securing it. Whatever the path, one thing remains certain: purpose is a question that sits within all of us.  Sydney Theatre Company has built a reputation for championing African American voices, staging landmark works by writers such as August Wilson (Fences, 2023) and Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun, 2022). While those productions connected Australian audiences with enduring American classics, Purpose offers a voice unmistakably of the present, one grappling with the complexity of living in a world that is hyper-aware of itself.  The play premiered on Broadway in the 2024-25 season, winning the 2025 Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It's rare for Australian audiences to encounter work with such immediacy; more often, international successes arrive years after their debut. Its programming signals that new artistic director Mitchell Butel may be shaping a tenure characterised by currency. At a moment when conversations around race, human rights, identity, politics...

There’s always a lot going on at Sydney’s favourite house. So much so that it can be hard to keep track – with new headliners dropping every other week, and huge events taking over the various venues seemingly out of nowhere.  Keen to go to a show under the sails over the next few months? We’ve rounded up a few top picks in the Sydney Opera House winter to spring season:  Backstage tours gives you a peek behind the curtain Explore the inner workings of Australia's most famous buildings on one of these expert-led tours. Dates: DailyTickets: From $48 Erth’s Dinosaurs will stomp into the Opera House Premiering in Sydney before heading off on a global tour, this larger-than-life theatrical adventure will bring the prehistoric world to life with astonishing puppetry, thrilling storytelling and plenty of dino facts. Dates: April 8–19Tickets: From $49 Parasite: Live in Concert will bring the Oscar-winning film to life A rare chance to experience the Academy Award-winning Parasite in a whole new way, Bong Joon-ho’s genre-defying masterpiece will light up the big screen while renowned composer Jung Jae-il conducts a live orchestra performing his haunting, tension-filled score in real time. Dates: April 24–25Tickets: From $89 The Other Side of Me will tell a powerful story through dance Making its Sydney debut, this intimate duet will explore the emotional fallout of the Stolen Generations through movement and storytelling. The piece follows a man caught between families, continents...

If you've ever wondered what would happen if a kid's drawing of their wildest dream utopia suddenly came off the page and into real life, you're in luck, because that's pretty much what's happening right now beneath the Art Gallery of NSW.  Artist and professional disruptor Mike Hewson has taken over the weird subterranean world of The Tank with his one-of-a-kind new exhibition, Mike Hewson: The Key's Under the Mat, where for the first time ever, all the main lights in the normally pitch-dark Tank will be switched on, revealing a weird wonderland of interactive art pieces and play equipment that have to be seen to be believed. We're talking: A steam room with stained glass windows that you can actually sit in, a functioning sauna with bespoke church pews, five actual operating public barbeques that you can cook on, rushing water to play in (seriously, bring your swimmers), a working laundry,  and a free-to-use recording studio, plus a whole plethora of bright and delightful surprises that are all about getting community together, to do cool stuff, for free. Basically, break your imagination and delete all adult expectations. This is unlike anything we've ever seen.  Kids who aren't afraid of some risk are also one of Hewson's big targets with this show (although parents, rest easy, the floor is specially made out of recycled soft rubber that's rated for use in public playgrounds), with the space also home to a wild children's playground. Intrepid kidlets can test their...

The Art Gallery of New South Wales is one of our fave places to hang out year-round – and this December it welcomes a banging new exhibition from Melbourne-born artist Ron Mueck. Ron Mueck: Encounter is the artist’s largest exhibition ever in Australia, bringing together a stunning selection of his hyperreal human sculptures from around the globe.  The life-like and scaled up sculptures aim to challenge perceptions by offering a profound and observational look at the human experience. Grounded in realism, the captivating figures tenderly embody themes such as birth, death, alienation and togetherness.  After making his start in children’s television, Mueck trained under Jim Henson (The Muppets) in puppeteering and model making where he made a name for himself on major projects including Sesame Street and the film Labyrinth. Soon after he relocated to London to run his own animatronic studio, before finding his way to figurative sculptures in the late ‘90s and revitalising the medium.  Ron Mueck: Encounter runs daily from December 6 to April 12, 10am–5pm, and until 10pm on Wednesday nights, as part of the Sydney International Art Series, a government initiative that teams up with Destination NSW to bring the world’s most prolific artists exclusively to Sydney. Tickets are $35 for adults on weekdays, $37 on weekends and public holidays, with two-for-one Art After Hours deals on Wednesday evenings, or $45 flexi tickets (which are un-dated single entry tickets). You can book...

You know that post-night-out buzz? The one after a really good date or wild night out with friends, where you’re smiling all the way home in the Uber, replaying the best moments in your head, before falling asleep in a dopamine haze. That’s the exact spell Head Over Heels cast on me. This gloriously camp, joy-filled queer musical is basically the recipe for a perfect night out: a wacky story, boppy tunes played live on stage, impressive costumes and props, and a cast where every member channels ‘main character’ energy. Brought to us by Hayes Theatre Company and Well Done Creative (the makers of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Avenue Q and Spring Awakening), Head Over Heels is a brilliant reminder of just how vital and dazzling small theatre productions are in Sydney. As a humble theatre fan, I believe this show deserves to be a sell-out – so consider this your gentle nudge to snag a ticket before the season ends on March 22. What is Head Over Heels about? Combining Shakespearean-style romance with the iconic '80s pop anthems of The Go-Go’s, Head Over Heels is a joyous celebration of nonconformity. It’s set against the legendary all-woman band’s boppy tunes, like ‘We Got the Beat’ and ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, with a side serve of Belinda Carlisle’s stratospheric solo career, including the anthemic ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth.' But if you’re expecting it to be a biopic about The Go-Go's rollicking adventures on the road, you might be in for a surprise. Head Over Heels is actually a...

Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum (soon to be plural) might technically have its doors closed right now, but the programming team isn't letting up. From Sydney Observatory’s Sunset Variations lighting up Friday nights to a lunar celebration timed to a rare blood moon, they’ve brought a solid selection of gems to the city’s cultural calendar this summer – and now they’re adding a delightfully left-of-field photography exhibition to the mix. From March 3-26, Powerhouse and the Office of the 24-Hour Economy Commissioner will present NSW at Night, a punchy new photography exhibition lighting up Parliament House’s Fountain Court. The collection is formed of freshly commissioned works by four standout NSW photographers capturing the people, places and pulse that define life after dark – from inner-city Sydney to Western Sydney, Wollongong and the Northern Rivers. Six-time Walkley winner Andrew Quilty has turned his lens to Sydney’s train network, finding poetry in commuters suspended between where they’ve been and where they’re headed. Northern Rivers-based photographer Tajette O’Halloran has documented youth culture and rites of passage in the region, while Illawarra-based Anthony Rigby-Smith has deep dived into the sweat, camaraderie and endorphin highs of Wollongong’s evening run clubs. Meanwhile, Jade D’Amico has embedded themself in Sydney’s music and club scene, bottling the movement, colour and gorgeous chaos of a night out in the city. The result is an intimate, unfiltered...

Sydneysiders don’t need many excuses to roll out a picnic rug, pop a bottle of pét-nat and spend a balmy evening under the stars – but this summer, Moonlight Cinema is making an especially solid case. Australia’s most well-established outdoor movie night is officially turning 30, and to celebrate, it’s handing the programming reins over to the people. Yep: for the first time ever, you get to help shape the season’s line-up. Since its debut back in 1995 – opening with a now-iconic screening of Pulp Fiction – Moonlight Cinema has become a staple of the Sydney summer. More than five million people have sprawled across the lawns since then: first dates, proposals, celeb sightings, and countless delighted doggos who’ve come to expect their own bean bag and biscuit as standard. This year, the beloved Belvedere Amphitheatre in Centennial Parklands will once again transform into one of the Harbour City’s most picturesque open-air theatres, with films running throughout the summer from Friday, November 21, 2025 to Sunday April 5, 2026. And while the November–December program is already on sale, the real thrill lies in The People’s Program – a nationwide vote to decide which nostalgic favourites will hit the big screen from January through March. Voting is now open, with film choices including Shrek, Dirty Dancing, The Castle, Jurassic Park and more. Everyone who casts a vote gets 30 per cent off General Admission to People’s Program screenings – plus a shot at winning a Double...

Get a glass of wine, crawl under the blankets and settle in on the beach for another season of movies in bed at Barangaroo. Yep, Mov'in Bed is back! This fun twist on the classic outdoor cinema has been running since 2016 – and from 2023, it's been bringing in 280 tonnes of white sand to transform Barangaroo into a pop-up beach, offering film buffs the chance to see new releases and beloved classics on the big screen. Located in Barangaroo's Harbour Park, it's close to the new Metro station, which means that snuggling under the stars in this beautiful harbourside spot has never been easier.  Hate sitting on grass for hours? Mov'in Bed has 150 queen- and king-sized beds, perfect for two or three people to share. Tickets start at just $12 for sand positions (BYO blanket), with queen-size bed experiences from $45 per person and VIP packages from $75 per person including sparkling wine, butler service, unlimited gourmet popcorn and premium viewing. The season kicks off with romance in Regretting You, followed by action-packed thrills like Tron: Ares, dramas including Twinless and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey and blockbusters such as Now You See Me Now You Don’t and Fantastic Four. From mid-December, the program goes full festive mode with Christmas favourites like Home Alone, Love Actually, Die Hard, Elf and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Find out what's screening and book your tickets here.