Melt 2026 — Brisbane's queer festival, the long way round.
Nineteen days, seventy-odd venues, a river full of boats and Brisbane Pride on the same Saturday. What Melt is, where the nights are, and how to survive 24 October.
- Dates
- Wed 21 Oct – Sun 8 Nov
- confirmed
- The big day
- Sat 24 Oct — the Rally, Fair Day and the River Pride Parade
- confirmed
- Home base
Brisbane Powerhouse (opens in a new tab), New Farm- Tickets
- Free and paid — check each night
Melt started in February 2015 as eleven days of queer art inside a former power station in New Farm, and for a long while that is exactly what it was: polite, indoors, a program you collected.
Continue reading the guideThat's enough for now
Then in 2024 it went citywide and open-access, and now the whole of Magandjin is the venue — more than a hundred events across more than seventy rooms, nineteen days of theatre, drag, comedy and parties, and a river with a parade on it.
It is still produced by Brisbane Powerhouse, and the building is worth a thought on the way in. It powered the city's trams, then spent decades as the place underground artists went to be left alone, and the graffiti they left behind is heritage-listed now. That is more or less Melt's whole argument. This year Brisbane Pride folds into its first weekend — the Rally, the March and Fair Day on the same Saturday as the boats — which makes 24 October one very long day that starts with speeches in the Valley at nine and ends, in theory, somewhere near New Farm Park after dark…
The dates that matter
Melt runs from Wednesday 21 October to Sunday 8 November. The first three nights belong to Mr First Nation, a new drag king competition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers, produced by Ben Graetz at the Powerhouse — shows on the 21st, 22nd and 23rd, with the grand final on Friday the 23rd. Then the Saturday arrives and everything happens at once.
The middle week is quieter and better for it — theatre, comedy and the open mics — with the Halloween weekend landing right in the middle on 30 October to 1 November. The closing weekend, 6 to 8 November, is the second peak. And a scheduling note that will catch somebody out: Melanie C at 
The Tivoli (opens in a new tab) and TEEKS at the Princess Theatre both carry the Melt banner on Saturday 14 November, a week after the festival itself has closed.
Saturday 24 October — a marathon with a boat in it
For the first time, Brisbane Pride's Rally and March and its Fair Day fall on the same day as the River Pride Parade. The Rally gathers from 9am at the corner of Ann and Brunswick Streets in Fortitude Valley, with speeches from 9:30; the March steps off at 10 and reaches New Farm Park around 11. Fair Day runs there from 10am to 5pm — back in New Farm Park after four years at Musgrave Park — and it is ticketed through Eventbrite this year, with the price still being confirmed when this went up.
At 4pm the River Pride Parade (opens in a new tab) takes the water, back for a third year and in a new twilight slot: boats from West End past South Bank, Queen's Wharf and Howard Smith Wharves to the Powerhouse, with the finale at New Farm Park. Somewhere in the flotilla is a fifteen-metre, hot-pink edition of Florentijn Hofman's Rubber Duck, which sails in the parade and then settles near the Powerhouse for the rest of the festival — the most photographed thing in Brisbane for a fortnight, and it knows it.
Then the Melt Opening Party at the Powerhouse, free, from the early evening — the official start of a festival that has, by then, been running for four days. Around a thousand onesies from the Onesie World workshops are free to claim the same day. Whether you put one on before the boat or after is between you and the river.
The boats — choose your deck
The parade's own boat registrations have closed, so if you want to be on the water rather than beside it, the way on is a party boat. Melt's official four are WET ON DECK, Come To Daddy, Splash Out and FUEL, and three of them are listed on KIKII.
Wet On Deck (opens in a new tab) is the queer boat-party rave from 
QUIVR (opens in a new tab) — the DJ collective and community space behind Melt's weekly Melting Pot — with Melt Presents, boarding mid-afternoon on the Saturday. The title is doing all the work, so I won't. Come Aboard To Daddy (opens in a new tab) puts 
Come To Daddy (opens in a new tab) on the Lady Brisbane, a two-level party boat running between West End and New Farm — one more level than anybody strictly needs, and exactly the right number to lose your friends on. Splash Out (opens in a new tab) is OASIS with Harry K, boarding at the 
City Botanic Gardens River Hub (opens in a new tab) at noon and back by five.
And if your idea of a boat involves fewer kick drums and more harmonies, Gay Pirate Day (opens in a new tab) is a sea-shanty singalong on the water with The Salty Sirens from 2pm — for gay pirates and sapphic sailors, by its own invitation. FUEL isn't on KIKII yet.
Where the first weekend ends up
![LAB FT BUDAY [THE DOG FATHER] — BERLIN](https://mwzoccapybfabtoqhuoe.supabase.co/storage/v1/render/image/public/event-images/82c7e2f0-7410-4cfd-9620-8d9ba38abb3f/cover-web-1789944559689.jpg?width=96&quality=70&resize=contain&t=1789944560758)
Friday is the warm-up. LAB (opens in a new tab) — Brisbane's darker, harder underground gay party — brings Buday, The Dog Father, from Berlin to 
Wonderland (opens in a new tab) from 10pm until three, for the people who intend to be useless on Saturday morning and have made their peace with it.
Saturday doesn't stop at the duck. Filthy Gorgeous (opens in a new tab) is the Fair Day afterparty at 
Hello Gorgeous (opens in a new tab) from 1pm, a community fundraiser that takes over the carpark as well as the room. Later, Witch's Paradise (opens in a new tab) brings Bárbara Labres to 
The Beaumont (opens in a new tab) from 9pm for heavy funk and baile funk with the Halloween turned up a week early, running to half past three, and PRECIOUS (opens in a new tab) opens 
Spice (opens in a new tab) at ten. The regulars carry on as if it were any other Saturday — drag at 
The Wickham (opens in a new tab), the 
Sportsman Hotel (opens in a new tab) and Come To Daddy.
Sunday is for the soft landing. Come Aboard to Daddy (opens in a new tab) keeps the party going on dry land at Come To Daddy from 1pm, and Wickham Sundaze (opens in a new tab) is free, outdoors and in daylight from 2pm — which, at that point in the weekend, is a kindness.
The art, which is the point
It is a festival of queer arts and culture first, and the program files itself under exhibition, performance, comedy, and community and family. The ticketed theatre at the Powerhouse is the part with finite seats: Jude York on Thursday 29 October at 7:30pm in the Powerhouse Theatre, and Circa's Show Me Love — a world-premiere commission — on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 November at 7:30pm and Saturday 7 November at 6:30pm. Courtney Barnett plays The Tivoli on Wednesday 4 November as part of the festival.
The smaller rooms are where Melt gets brave. Katie is a Marker Sniffing Lesbian (opens in a new tab) is a darkly funny coming-of-age play at the Powerhouse on Saturday 31 October — a student on track to dux, a locker full of glow-in-the-dark Sharpies, and very little supervision. Big Fork's Queer Comedy Hour (opens in a new tab) is at 
Big Fork Theatre (opens in a new tab) on Thursday 29 October, the same night as the altimate.SHOWDOWN (opens in a new tab) season-four grand final at 
The Brightside (opens in a new tab). The Buttery (opens in a new tab), a queer open mic at 
The Junk Bar (opens in a new tab), runs on Wednesday 28 October and again, almost all ages, on the closing Sunday. And Melt itself presents Speed Mating Night (opens in a new tab) that same Wednesday, free — the only event on the program honest enough to put the intention in the title.
Beyond the theatres, Queer the Town spreads Melt through Fish Lane, Fortitude Valley, Howard Smith Wharves and Queen's Wharf, which is the open-access idea doing what it was built for: you walk past it on the way to something else, and then you don't.
The sapphic side
The girls and the theys do well out of the first weekend. After Hours II (opens in a new tab) is a lesbian RnB party at 
Pawn & Co (opens in a new tab) on Friday 23 October from 8pm — sapphic DJs, sweet cocktails and music you know the words to. The same evening, Brisbane's drag kings, the Kings of Kaos, take over the laboratory for Cocky Horror (opens in a new tab), a parody cabaret of The Rocky Horror Show, from 6pm.
On the Saturday, between the March and the boats, Cosmic Connections (opens in a new tab) is a sapphic astrology mixer at 
Walkabout Creek (opens in a new tab) from 3pm, for anyone who would rather be asked their rising sign than their surname. And with Mr First Nation opening the festival, the kings have the first three nights to themselves before anybody else gets a look in.
Halloween, in the middle of it all
Halloween falls right in the middle of Melt this year, and Brisbane has its own Halloween page for the whole weekend. The short version: Videocouch (opens in a new tab) throws a costume party at The Junk Bar on Thursday 29 October; The Night(mare) Before Halloween (opens in a new tab) is at Come To Daddy on the Friday from 6:30pm; and Nightmare at The Wickham (opens in a new tab) is free from 5pm on the night itself. A week after everyone else has put the costume away, 
Club Broadway (opens in a new tab) throws its Wicked Halloween Ball (opens in a new tab) at The Beaumont on Saturday 7 November — for the people who were never going to take it off anyway.
The closing weekend
Friday 6 November is the comeback night. Queer Mami's El Apagón (opens in a new tab) — reggaetón, dembow and perreo at Hello Gorgeous from 7:30pm — is named for the blackout that cancelled their last Brisbane night, which is a better reason to come back than most people get. Across town, 'she is' (opens in a new tab) with Sacred Hearts is free at 
Felons Brewing Co (opens in a new tab) from 7pm.
Saturday 7 November stacks up. Tropical Fruits: MELTED (opens in a new tab) brings the Lismore crew to QUIVR's newly expanded space from 6pm for queer dance, performance and celebration. Panic! at the Woke Parade (opens in a new tab) at The Brightside opens with parody cover bands playing the records you swore you'd grown out of. BootCo in the Bunker (opens in a new tab) is the leather night downstairs at the Sportsman. And Show Me Love has its last listed show at the Powerhouse at 6:30.
Book in this order
Most of Melt is free or pay-on-the-night, which is the point of an open-access festival and also its trap: the few things with finite tickets are the ones to sort first. One: Fair Day — ticketed this year, through Eventbrite, once the price is confirmed. Two: a boat, if you want to be on the water on the 24th, since the parade's own registrations have closed. Three: the Powerhouse theatre — Show Me Love and Jude York have seats, not dancefloors. Four: the closing Saturday, which has more on it than one night can hold.
After the duck
Queensland passed decriminalisation in December 1990, the same year Brisbane held its first Pride. Thirty-six years on, the festival has a boat parade, a fifteen-metre duck and a power station that used to run the trams, and nobody is asking anyone's permission for any of it. That is not nothing. It might even be the point.
So do the Saturday properly, see one thing you'd never have bought a ticket for, and leave room in the second week for whatever you didn't know was on. Melt has always been better at the edges than in the middle, and the edges, this year, are most of the city…
Chapter 1 · The bit nobody tells you
The bars — where Brisbane goes out the rest of the year.
Melt borrows half the city's queer rooms for three weeks. Here are the ones that are open the other forty-nine.
Brisbane's queer scene is small enough to know by heart and spread out enough to need a plan. Most of it sits in Fortitude Valley, Spring Hill is a short walk up the hill, and the rest is wherever a promoter found a room with a decent sound system.
The Valley
The Wickham (opens in a new tab) is the pub with the beer garden: trivia midweek, Friday and Saturday Night Features with drag and DJs, and Wickham Sundaze, free, for the people who'd rather end the week outdoors. 
The Beat Megaclub (opens in a new tab) is the late one — Wednesdays at The Beat with drag, THRUST! Thursdays and a Sunday show, open late every time.
Spring Hill, and the rest of the map
The Sportsman Hotel (opens in a new tab) in Spring Hill is the historic one, with Saturday Showtime drag and BootCo's leather nights in the Bunker. Come To Daddy (opens in a new tab) runs something most nights of the week — trivia, Daddy-oke, a Queer Alternative Night on Fridays and drag shows on Saturdays. Wonderland (opens in a new tab) is where LAB, the darker, harder underground party, lands.
Hello Gorgeous (opens in a new tab) and QUIVR (opens in a new tab) are the community rooms Melt leans on hardest, and The Beaumont (opens in a new tab) takes the big ticketed nights — Joey Jay LIVE opens Melt's first night there on Wednesday 21 October. The shape of a good night: a beer garden at the Wickham, drag wherever drag is, and The Beat for the part you won't describe the next morning.
Chapter 2 · The bit nobody tells you
A note on accuracy — and one last thing.
Festivals move. Here's what was confirmed on 19 October 2026, and what to double-check.
Every date, time and venue here was checked against Melt's own program, Brisbane Powerhouse and Brisbane Pride on 19 October 2026. A few things were still moving: the Opening Party is listed from 6pm on the Powerhouse's own page and from 5:30 elsewhere; Fair Day's ticket price and its 2pm headliner hadn't been announced; and Show Me Love has had extra shows mentioned that its own page doesn't list. Check melt.org.au before you leave the house.
Go be part of it. Tip the bar staff, thank the kings as loudly as the queens, look after each other on the walk to the ferry — and get your Fair Day ticket early.
Back to the chaptersJust visiting? Where to stay, when to comeRight — back to the nightlife
Chapter 3 · If you're visiting
Getting there & getting around.
Most of Melt orbits one building in New Farm. Getting to it is easy; getting home from it on the 24th takes a plan.
Getting to the Powerhouse
Brisbane Powerhouse (opens in a new tab) is at 119 Lamington Street, New Farm. The easy way in is the ferry: the New Farm Park terminal is about 440 metres away, a walk through the park. Buses 196 and 199 stop within a few hundred metres. There are 148 paid spaces in the Powerhouse car park — a flat $15 from 5pm Wednesday to Saturday — and around 200 free spaces in New Farm Park, which on 24 October will not be the secret they are the rest of the year.
The long Saturday, in order
9am, the Rally gathers at Ann and Brunswick Streets in Fortitude Valley. 9:30, speeches. 10am, the March steps off for New Farm Park, arriving around 11. 10am to 5pm, Fair Day in New Farm Park. 4pm, the River Pride Parade. Evening, the Melt Opening Party at the Powerhouse. Bring water, a hat and sunscreen — Brisbane in late October is not shy about the sun — and something warmer for the river after dark.
Access
Every level of the Powerhouse is reachable by lift and the Turbine Platform by ramp, and a hearing loop is available on request. Melt says it strives to be accessible across its venues; access details for the March route and New Farm Park hadn't been published when this went up, so check before you go.
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