Each February, Perth becomes a stage for the city’s creative talent and performers, bringing public spaces and abandoned buildings to life. In a few months, Perth Festival returns for 23 days of art, performance, and spectacle, unveiling 108 events, including 20 world premieres, nine Australian premieres, and 33 free experiences that promise to reimagine the familiar.
This year’s program, the second from Artistic Director Anna Reece, extends an invitation to see Perth through fresh eyes. “Perth Festival is our city at its best. Curious, connected, creative and completely alive,” Reece says. “For four weeks in summer, we open as many doors as we can and invite everyone in. We don’t just put on shows, we take over the city with brilliant artists and their truth-telling and mischief-making. This is not just art you want, it’s art you need.”
The festival’s energy will spill across unexpected spaces — from office towers and town halls to riversides, hillsides, and under the vast night sky. It’s an expression of Perth’s evolving cultural identity, one that balances global vision with the city’s own creative heartbeat.
Western Australian Premier Roger Cook commented, “The WA Government is committed to fostering a vibrant and creative State. Perth Festival plays a vital role in this vision — which is why we are proud to again support the Festival through Lotterywest. As a highlight of WA’s event calendar, it brings together global artists, local talent, and the spirit of our city — making it a unique event found only in Perth.”
Things to do in Perth
2026 program highlights
The festival opens online with A View From A Bridge, a moving digital project by British artist Joe Bloom. Exploring connection in an age of distraction, the work unfolds across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok as the voices and bridges of Perth create a viral network of courage and quiet listening — a poetic reflection of contemporary life.
Among the Western Australian commissions are Hugo Flavelle’s Let Me In, Let Me Out, Adam Kelly’s Dragon I, and The Booster Protocol by pvi collective — a playful, street-based adventure that transforms the everyday into performance.
This year’s program continues the festival’s tradition of nurturing bold local work alongside international artistry, connecting Perth’s creative community to the world stage.
Perth’s iconic venues reimagined
Following its triumphant revival last year, the East Perth Power Station returns as the festival’s beating heart — a place where music, light, and community meet. Voted Best Cultural, Arts or Music Event in WA at the 2025 Australian Event Awards, the venue will once again host a dynamic mix of performances and late-night gatherings.
Lighting up the skies above the Derbarl Yerrigan/Swan River, Karla Bidi returns with a new soundscape of song and story inspired by the Noongar tradition of lighting fires to guide visitors — its beacons stretching from the hills to the Indian Ocean in a breathtaking illuminated pathway.
At St Mary’s Cathedral, the new Sanctum Series will bring world-class music into one of the city’s most transcendent settings. Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth will fill the cathedral’s vaulted space with their innovative harmonies, while virtuoso fiddler Martin Hayes brings the lyrical beauty of traditional Irish music to the West. The series will also feature clarinettist Tommaso Lonquich, cellist Umberto Clerici, and pianist Claudio Martínez Mehner, alongside Swedish vocal quartet Åkervinda and local talents including Riley Skevington with WASO musicians.
Meanwhile, The Embassy returns to Perth Town Hall — a glamorous, cabaret-style venue where jazz, blues, soul, and swing collide. Perth chanteuse Ali Bodycoat performs with The Embassy Big Band, joined by a lineup that includes Somi, C.W. Stoneking, Emily Lubitz, and Japanese jazz virtuoso Makoto Ozone. Expect nights of smoky charm, sharp suits, and soulful storytelling.
Dance, drama, and stories of now
The Quarry Amphitheatre once again becomes a summer sanctuary for Ballet at The Quarry, returning with Incandescence — four dazzling world premiere works blending classical precision with contemporary innovation. The Western Australian Youth Theatre Company presents Scenes From the Climate Era, an ambitious new production that shifts between comic and tragic tones across 66 vignettes exploring humanity’s relationship with a changing planet.
Dance lovers can also look forward to Perth Moves by STRUT Dance — a kinetic celebration featuring eight nights of classes, a one-night-only dance battle, and the world premiere of Concrete Echoes by Aotearoa duo Ta’alili. The festival’s participatory spirit reaches its crescendo with Cercles, a large-scale work by acclaimed French choreographer Boris Charmatz, uniting 200 dancers in the heart of the city for a moment of pure collective energy.
