Brisbane has always had a way of holding something back for winter. When the humidity lifts, the city sharpens, and for eight weeks in 2026, it finds its voice again. Open Season returns from 25 May to 25 July, expanding into its most ambitious form yet, a city-wide program that moves beyond venues and into the fabric of Brisbane itself.
What began in 2020 as a single-venue experiment has grown into something far more sprawling. Now stretching across The Tivoli, The Princess Theatre, QPAC’s Glasshouse Theatre, Fish Lane, Clarence Corner, St Andrew’s Church, Quivr and beyond, Open Season feels less like a festival and more like a network, a system of sound running through the city.
At its centre sits a lineup that resists easy categorisation. The world premiere of Gil Scott-Heron by Brian Jackson & Yasiin Bey anchors the program, revisiting the work of one of the most influential voices in modern music with a sense of urgency rather than nostalgia. That legacy continues through the introspective precision of Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE, whose collaboration extends into live form, while Saint Levant brings a different kind of intimacy, threading multilingual R&B through global audiences.
Elsewhere, the sonic spectrum widens. Mogwai, marking 30 years, arrive with their slow-building intensity, joined by Deafheaven, Nothing and SPY in a heavier, more immersive corner of the program. Electronic music pulses across sets from Skin on Skin, Alison Wonderland, RONA., Ben Gerrans, Bradley Zero, dameeeeela and C.FRIM, turning dancefloors into shared spaces of release.
Indie and alternative voices cut through in different ways. Dry Cleaning’s clipped, spoken-word delivery sits alongside Wednesday’s blurred edges of alt-country and slacker rock, while Current Joys leans into lo-fi introspection. The Black Angels and Silversun Pickups reconnect with a lineage of psych and shoegaze, carrying echoes of the past without settling into them.
The quieter moments hold their own weight. Cate Le Bon, with support from Hana Stretton, brings a hypnotic precision, while Kae Tempest’s work lands with narrative force. Clara La San draws the room inward, Matt Berninger reframes his voice outside of The National, and Ben Kweller threads melody through memory.
Australian artists remain integral to the program’s identity. Hiatus Kaiyote return to mark 15 years of boundary-pushing soul, while Eddy Current Suppression Ring deliver a rare and long-awaited performance. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Rum Jungle, Mulga Bore Hard Rock, Full Flower Moon Band, Shady Nasty, Beddy Rays, Hatchie and Jem Cassar-Daley continue to define the local landscape, each bringing their own texture to the season.
Peach PRC’s inclusion adds another layer, her hyper-pop world colliding with vulnerability and theatricality, while Against The Grain Festival expands into a multi-venue block party featuring Stereolab, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Hatchie among its first announcements. Blak Day Out centres First Nations voices with Beddy Rays and Jem Cassar-Daley, while South System Vol. 2 and Centrefold push electronic music into public and communal spaces with artists including RONA., C.FRIM, dameeeela, nikitasilly, Peachtings and Squidgenini.
Beyond music, Open Season stretches outward. Nowhere Fast, a photographic exhibition curated by John Willstead and Robert Forster, documents Brisbane’s punk lineage, while interdisciplinary works like Assembly Vol. 2 – Dull Boy, Cruisin’ For A Brusin’ and SKIN blur the boundaries between dance, film and live performance.
What emerges is something deliberately porous. Open Season 2026 doesn’t just programme artists, it builds pathways between them, across genres, across spaces, across audiences. It asks you to move, to follow sound through the city, to see Brisbane not as a backdrop but as an active participant.
More names are still to come. But already, the shape of winter is clear.
TICKETS AND KEY DATES
Pre-sale Thursday 26 March 2026, 7:00am AEST
General on-sale Friday 27 March 2026, 8:00am AEST
Venues The Tivoli, The Princess Theatre, QPAC Glasshouse Theatre, South Bank Rainforest Green, Fish Lane, Old Regent Cinema, Clarence Corner block party, Quivr, Echo and Bounce, Museum of Brisbane and more.
