If the holidays are draining your pockets, fear not — Sydney Festival 2026 is chockers with free and affordable entertainment, from family-friendly fun to outdoor dancing, live music, cinematic street takeovers and brain-provoking discussions. 

Dive deeper into our beautiful arts community through Summer School, where workshops, talks and immersive events take the lead, or swing through one of our beautiful outdoor gatherings.

You don't need to spend big to follow the art this summer. Explore our curated pick of Festival highlights that won’t stretch your wallet.

The big summer gatherings

You won't want to skip our full street shutdown, Live on Hickson Road. First dive into the drama at Efectos Especiales where live action meets cinema, the street becomes a film set and everyone’s a movie extra. Then in the evening The Kick On flips the tarmac scenery into an after-hours soiree with djs and dancing in the warm night air.

Sydney’s beloved summer music institution returns to the heart of the city for a big 'ole birthday party and you’re invited. Pack a picnic for Symphony Under the Stars: 50 Years of Music and Pictures, featuring First-Nations orchestral work, a retrospective of festival memories through music and archive footage, and a summer’s night of exquisite harmonies. 

Gather at Barangaroo at sunset on the Festival’s last day for Vigil: Belong, a moving celebration of Blak song and ceremony amid Lucy Simpson’s Held sculptures with Uncle Matthew Doyle kindling fire and smoke and Nardi Simpson leading a community choir of hundreds between earth, water and the stars.

Immerse yourself

Over at Darling Harbour, sculptor Julia Phillips’s Observer, Observed turns the tourist’s gaze inside-out with bronze binoculars broadcasting your searching eyes in a playful probe of surveillance, spectatorship and social media voyeurism. Follow the water’s edge to Coogee where Tongan-Australian artist Latai Taumoepeau gathers women and children for Wansolmoana: Lunar Assembly, a guided moon ritual of meditation, music, ceremony and saltwater renewal at McIver's Ladies Baths, one of the last remaining women-only ocean pools in the world. 

Explore life’s great unknown in Death by Powerpoint, a witty, moving and collaborative exploration of mortality created by queer-run funeral home Liferites in Hurstville and performance platform Queer PowerPoint. Or pull up a milk crate for Blacktown Garage Party’s transformation of Blacktown Arts Centre into a lively Pasifika hub with music, karaoke, performance, workshops, dazzling decor and fun photo shoots.

Family fun

Celebrating play’s boundless power, Rothar, at the Sydney Opera House, is a free-wheeling adventure for all ages set in a bicycle repair shop at the end of town. Using physical comedy, reworked spare parts and the unbridled imagination of two inventive boys, it’s an everchanging dreamscape of creativity. Also traversing extraordinary worlds, The Bogong’s Song: a call to Country, a new Bangarra Dance Theatre children’s work at Parramatta Square and Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, follows a brother and sister into the Dreaming where the past speaks through creatures, stars, trees and grass.

Also at Parramatta Square and Sutherland, summon a lost symphony with gardeners Dag and Dug at Garden of Sound where children and their families can explore, play and create music in an interactive, motion‑driven garden world. Hang ten at Bondi Pavilion as Legs On The Wall’s Waverider blends a giant inflatable wave with acrobatics, surf culture and play, before transforming the stage into a hands-on ocean playground for all.

For the love of dance

At Blacktown Arts Centre, Sisa-Sisa’s searing dance double-bill blends Indonesian tradition, original music, and powerful storytelling in a raw and poetic meditation on survival and memory.

If you've got the urge to get moving yourself, join acclaimed Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn for Serious Dances for Ridiculous Problems, a dance workshop at Sydney Dance Company, or Italian artist Alessandro Sciarroni’s collaborators at Save the Last Dance for Me, a chance to learn the almost-extinct Polka Chinata, a physically daring courtship dance developed in early 20th-century Bologna.

More for the music seekers

Meditative and joyful, the music of Tibetan-Australian artist, composer and Grammy nominee Tenzin Choeygal, known for his soaring vocalism and masterful instrumentalism, will fill Bankstown Arts Centre with solo shows, a collaboration with rising star Wytchings and an intimate musician’s workshop.

Meet Western Sydney’s next wave of music artists at Undercurrent, a three-night sonic takeover of Parramatta Square amplifying everything from electronic underground to Pasifika soul, queer anthems and genre-defying sounds experiments.

Head to ACO on the Pier for An afternoon with Lonnie Holley and Kelly Lovemonster, a conversation exploring the venerated US visual artist’s hypnotic live music improvisations.

Get arty

Spanning Stargazer’s Lawn, Held is Yuwaalaraay Wirringgaa woman and artist Lucy Simpson’s striking new installation: four sculptural forms honouring land, sky and sea Country inviting reflection and connection. SEARCHERS: Graffiti and Contemporary Art brings spray paint centre stage as over 30 artists, from back-alley writers to acclaimed painters trace the medium’s grit and glory in a bold National Art School exhibition at Walsh Bay.

Big thinking

Returning to honour the radical spirit of the 1970s National Black Theatre, Redfern Renaissance celebrates Blak artistry, activism and the enduring legacy of Redfern’s trailblazing theatre artists in an expanded series of inspiring performance readings and discussions curated by Wiradjuri Yuin actor Angeline Penrith.

Bring your beefs to Conflictorium a pop-up interactive museum of conflict seeking to restore dignity to debate and help humans use personal contradictions to nurture empathy and dialogue. Get stuck into workshops too, with Conflict Inside Out and Do You Mean It?.

If you love online or interactive electronic games, join artists Milton Lim and Laurel Green at Cooperative Play for the Gameful Revolution, an exploration into the way shared games reshape communities, creativity and connection.