To say it has been a rough year, is an understatement. But thankfully, Queensland’s most anticipated event of 2020, the Brisbane Festival will soon be here to lift our spirits, brighter and bolder.

With giant outdoor installations, intimate street concerts, suburban symphonies and an epic new light and laser installation, this year's Festival is set to bring the unexpected and the delightful to Brisbane from 4 - 26 September, reaching all 190 suburbs of the city with a line-up unlike any presented before.

Here we uncover some of the free and ticketed events that you have to see!

SUNSUPER NIGHT SKY

When: Friday 4 - Saturday 26 September (Every Fri & Sat, 7pm - 9pm)
Where: Brisbane City
Tickets: FREE
Age guidance: All ages
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Beaming from more than a dozen rooftops across Brisbane is Sunsuper Night Sky, a new laser, light and sound installation from internationally-acclaimed audio-visual artist Robin Fox, viewable from hundreds of vantage points across the city on Friday and Saturday nights across the Festival.

MESSENGERS OF BRISBANE

When: Friday 4 - Saturday 26 September, All day event
Where: QPAC / South Bank / Goodwill Bridge / Brisbane Powerhouse / Queensland Museum / Brisbane City Hall
Tickets: FREE
Age guidance: All ages
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Messengers of Brisbane is a large-scale art project by Dutch visionary Florentijn Hofman andbrought to life by Brisbane’s Urban Art Projects, featuring six giant installations inspired by the native Gouldian Finch.

STREET SERENADES

When: Friday 4 - Saturday 26 September
Where: Across Brisbane’s 190 suburbs
Tickets: FREE
Age guidance: All ages
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Street Serenades is the biggest concert in Brisbane’s history. Deconstructed and delivered to each of the city’s 190 suburbs in the form of neighbourhood concerts, suburban symphonies and park performances.

LEVIATHAN 

When: Thursday 3 - Saturday 12 September 7.30pm
Where: QPAC, South Brisbane
Tickets: $45 - $55 + booking fee 
Age guidance: All ages
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Exploring the massive and unpredictable energies that are unleashed in a civilisation careening toward an unknown fate, Leviathan offers hope in these complex times. Connecting the local with the global, it celebrates what we can achieve when we work together.

The dramatic power and extreme skill of Circa’s trademark acrobatics thrillingly expose the tension between the mass and the individual in this deeply moving and physically stunning show.

COWBOY

When: Friday 4 - Sunday 6 September 
Where: Metro Arts, West End
Tickets: $15 + booking fee
Age guidance: Ages 15+
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Featuring a mesmerising original score composed by Ben Ely (Regurgitator), set in the imagined sweeping landscape of a classic old western, Cowboy is an interactive, solo contemporary dance work.

From surfing trains to taming horses to wandering the desert, this work unpacks your ability to have a complete, genuine, and meaningful experience as an imagined self.

Saddle up and enter the world of Cowboy for a poignantly funny yet sensitive ride.

THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF STARS

When: Thursday 10 - Friday 11 September 8pm 
Where: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley 
Tickets: $35 + booking fee 
Age guidance: Ages 18+
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
World music favourites MZAZA bring you their third album The Birth and Death of Stars, a surreal voyage exploring what links us to one another and the world around us.

Contemplate your place in the universe as the sounds of some of Australia’s most diverse musicians and songwriters transport you to another time and place.

SILENCE

When: Thursday 10 - Sunday 13 September
Where: Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm
Tickets: $25 + booking fee 
Age guidance: Ages 12+
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
SILENCE is about the space in between. Conversations not being heard and responses that are muted. A drum beats and bodies thrash through frequencies to uncover what lies in the SILENCE. There is SILENCE between stars as the emu travels across the night sky, or the dancer’s energy when they hit the cut between rhythms. It’s also the deafening silence under white noise. The same questions echoed through generations. Choreographed by Bundjalung-Yugambeh, Wiradjuri and Ni-Vanuatu man Thomas E.S. Kelly, this new dance work pulls it from under the rug and slams it back on the table. Because the conversation about a TREATY will never be silenced.

WASHINGTON

When: Saturday 12 - Sunday 13 September
Where: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley
Tickets: $45 + booking fee 
Age guidance: Ages 18+
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Megan Washington – one of Brisbane’s most celebrated musicians – invites you to the launch of her long-awaited album Batflowers, a musical album and silent film.

The first single ‘Dark Parts’ off her new 2020 album has been raucously received with rave reviews from the likes of The Guardian, Junkee, and Rolling Stone. 

This intimate experience, in the old-world setting of The Tivoli, will be a hell of a party.

ONE BOTTLE LATER

When: Wednesday 16 - Sunday 20 September
Where: Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm
Tickets: $45 + booking fee 
Age guidance: Ages 18+
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
You’re invited to join The Good Room for a conversational escapade, a few drinks and a good time.

Get to know a stranger in this high-fun and low-risk socially distanced intimacy experiment. With 36 random questions, a bottle of your choice and a glitter drop, take a chance on a stranger becoming your new fast friend.

This one is for bold and adventurous punters who like their hearts open and glasses full.

THE LOST LENDING LIBRARY 

When: Saturday 19 - Saturday 26 September    
Where: Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm
Tickets: $40 + booking fee (per family group of up to 4)
Age guidance: Ages 4 -12 
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Enter the Library to discover a magical world, a celebration of books and the journeys they take us on. Inspire a lifetime of reading and writing in this intimate experience for children aged 4 to 12 years old, their families and carers. 

THE SWEETEST TABOO

When: Saturday 19 September 5pm & 9pm
Where: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley
Tickets: $45 + booking fee 
Age guidance: Ages 18+ 
More Info: brisbanefestival.com.au
Katie Noonan and her Quintet will perform reinterpretations of the classic ‘80s songs that shaped her life. 

New arrangements will be brought to life in the jazz idiom by Katie and her exceptional band, recreating songs from her early musical heroes including Sting, Icehouse, Terence Trent D’Arby, Crowded House, Billy Joel, Vince Jones, Eurythmics and U2.