A guide to NSW and Sydney's music festivals

Spring 

Springtime is festival season in NSW. In Sydney, there are two major music festivals. Listen Out’s multi-city schedule lands in Sydney in mid-spring, giving you a lineup of cutting-edge hip hop and electronic artists. Harbourlife is a one-night-only inner-city dance party powered by the beats of international house DJs. 

Outside Sydney there’s even more on. South of the city, the award-winning music festival Yours and Owls takes over Wollongong for two days of genre-diverse partying. Clearly Festival brings folk, surf rock and dulcet indie tunes to their wellness-focused schedule in Kiama. Further south, on the Sapphire Coast, Wanderer is a biennial (every two years, so next edition is October 2025) boutique music, art and culture festival that takes off where the now-defunct festival The Lost Lands left off, namely, focusing on creativity, community and sustainability.   

Wanderer Festival, Pambula Beach - Credit: David Rogers

North of Sydney, the Del Rio Riverside Resort at Wiseman’s Ferry usually hosts Return to Rio, a weekend of dancing, river swims, pool parties and DJs. They are taking 2024 off (with a hope to return in 2025) and are instead bringing a Day of the Dead-themed festival to Sydney in November.  

Return to Rio Music Festival 2018, Wisemans Ferry

Two more unique festivals are found inland. Broken Heel is the aptly named, several-decade-old celebration of the iconic film The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert that turns Broken Hill into a showcase of disco, drag and divas. At the other end of the cultural spectrum is the Deni Ute Muster in Deniliquin. While the program is mostly informed by ute-worshipping and mustering, there’s also a main stage featuring country music and rock acts.

Deni Ute Muster 2013, Deniliquin

Summer 

Sydney is jam-packed with festivals over the summer. Near the end of the year genre-specialists Good Things Festival come to east Sydney for one day only. It brings some of the world’s biggest punk, metal, emo and rock artists in the world to Centennial Park for a day of head banging.    

For the biggest party of the year, New Year’s Eve, there are two massive festivals to choose from. The Sydney option is Field Day, offering grassy knolls and a variety of sounds – just make sure you get in early to score a ticket. Outside of Sydney the Central Coast hosts Lost Paradise, which has brought in names like Carl Cox, Overmono and Foals.

Lost Paradise Festival, Glenworth Valley

With the new year ticked over, Sydney continues its epic summer festival line-up with four unique events. Kicking them off is the multi-week, city-wide Sydney Festival, a multidisciplinary event that combines cutting-edge performers with incredible spaces. Although it’s called St Jerome’s Laneway Festival (it’s more commonly known as Laneway, as it did indeed start in one), the fact it's held at the Sydney Showground tells you a lot about the scale and nature of the day – expect some big names in the indie, pop and electronic scenes. 

Laneway Festival, Sydney - Credit: Daniel Boud

If reggae is your jam, drop into Jammin, a small festival that has attracted Sean Paul, UB40, Shaggy and Sean Kingston. On the 26th of January every year Koori Radio transforms Victoria Park into Yabun, the largest one-day gathering of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures in Australia. Explore a bustling marketplace and join the crowds in front of a stage featuring a mixed-genre lineup of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.  

Outside of Sydney, head to the Upper Hunter for the Tamworth Country Musical Festival, a weeklong rural party revered as one of the biggest and best country music festivals in the world. Alternatively, don your wig and leathers and join 20,000 Elvis fanatics in the Central West for the Parkes Elvis Festival, a cultural phenomenon that’s been running since 1993.  

Tamworth Country Music Festival, Tamworth - Credit: Tamworth Country Music Festival  

Autumn 

For reasons unknown, autumn is primetime for electronic dance music. If you want an outdoor mix of styles look up Ultra Sydney, the local leg of the huge international dance event brand. If those genres don't hit your need for pure bass intensity, try the heavier beats of trap, dub step and drum and bass at Touch Bass festival.   

Great Southern Nights is in March, featuring hundreds of gigs throughout Sydney’s inner city and Western Sydney, as well as shows in key music communities across NSW from Northern Rivers to Wagga Wagga. 

One of the state’s biggest music festivals is Byron Bay’s BluesFest, which is only partly honest to its name. Although the festival has had almost every famous living songwriter in blues music on its line-up, the festival has also invited the likes of Kendrick Lamar; The National; and Earth, Wind and Fire. For a more relaxed, community-oriented feel plan a holiday just west of the Central Coast for the St Albans Folk Festival.   

Aerial over Byron Bay Bluesfest - Credit: Byron Bay Bluesfest

Winter 

Starting in late autumn and moving into winter, Vivid Sydney lights up the city and stage with a diverse mix of international acts and emerging local artists. It’s one of the biggest festivals in the country, hosting both big-ticket shows alongside free events covering a range of genres and vibes. Volume at the Art Gallery of NSW combines a variety of artists and musicians pushing the boundaries of both live performance and genre, all hosted in the gallery’s underground space in the new North Building. 

Tribute to Archie Roach at Vivid Sydney 2023, Town Hall

For a more intimate experience, head to Surry Hills for the Sydney Folk Festival, three days of traditional, revival and multicultural folk sounds in August. The iconic electronic festival, Testament by Ministry of Sound, is back – this time at the newly revived White Bay Power Station – with acts from the ‘90s and ‘00s such as John Course, Mousse T., and Dirty South. UK rave fans will be happy to know Sydney will play host to DnB Allstars, with headliners Hedex, Serum b2b Voltage.        

Up north, Byron Bay Beach Hotel is hosting the one-day festival A Splendid Weekender in July, new for 2024. An all-Australian line-up of up-and-coming pop and rock should be a fun time. Head west and into the desert near Broken Hill for the Mundi Mundi Bash, a weekend-long family-friendly rock and roll festival on the red sands of the Mundi Mundi Plains.   

The Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash, Outback NSW - Credit: Born To Run