From regional to RISING: Making the most of Melbourne’s premier cultural festival

It may be Melbourne’s biggest new art, music, and performance takeover, but it’s certainly not gatekept to the Melbourne community.

RISING makes its highly anticipated return from 27 May—08 June 2026, spanning ballroom to tram, live music venue to street and so many more unexpected spaces in a lively city takeover. Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo or further afar – no matter where you are based, there’s a road or railway to get you into the heart of this year’s bold programming. Even better is that the Victorian government has extended free transport until 30 May and halved the price train fares from 1 June until the end of the year, with double the frequency.

RISING

When: 27 May – 08 June 2026

Where: Various Venues in Melbourne

Keep up to date with all things arts, exhibitions and stage here.

Shows with access to Southern Cross Station

 

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Headliner Lil’ Kim will be fronting the stage at Festival Hall for a career-spanning celebration. Tackling her defining works Hard Core and The Notorious K.I.M., witness one of the biggest change-makers to the world of hiphop on Saturday 30 May. She is supported by two heavyweights, starting with powerhouse in intentional nightlife, Dutty Worldwide, who centres Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (QTBIPOC) through bold sound, movement, and unapologetic joy. Second is Soju Gang — aka Sky Thomas — a proud Gunai/Kurnai, Yorta Yorta, and Wiradjuri woman, and a Naarm nightlife fixture, bringing her signature mix of old-school hip hop, RnB, baile flips, jersey club bangers to the stage.

Either walk up Little Bourke Street, or get onto the City Loop to Parliament Station and you’ll hear the rumble of Bass Lounge luring you in. Down beneath the Paramount Food Court, you’ll find the late-night haunt of Friday night parties. Major players Rotational, Naomie Klaus, Nicolini, Artificial, Kidskin, Zalina, Ed Kent, Front Page Leslie, Bridget Small b2b Sofay, and more take you deep into the darkness of night until 4am. Make sure you test your pipes with the festival-run karaoke too.

Find your feet with these concerts close to Flinders Street Station

 

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Federation Square is a prime site for major activations this RISING, including the newest festival addition, a free, all-ages Pasefika block party, God Save The Queens. The event features New Zealand/Aotearoa’s kings and queens of street dance, The Royal Family Dance Crew, known for bringing their flavour to the forefront of pop-culture with founder Parris Goebel choreographing music videos for pop stars like Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Justin Bieber. Witness their magic live and leave knowing the dance moves to Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’. The session further features live music, dance, food trucks, and an unforgettable open-air celebration of culture and expression with a lineup of Lady Shaka, Kween Kong, HALFQUEEN, JessB + Rubi Du, Neo Sun and the huge voices of the Pasefika Vitoria Choir.

Just across the street, Melbourne’s favourite Forum will have a double dose of entertainment. First up there is Gil Scott-Heron by Brian Jackson & Yasiin Bey on 28 May, ready to shake the world up with the premiere of their tribute to the late, great Gil Scott-Heron (of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ fame). Brian Jackson was one of Gil Scott-Heron’s original collaborators in the ‘70s. Plus UK experimental art rockers Dry Cleaning check in on Saturday 30 May, armed with their Secret Love.

 

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A hop down the road, enter the glorious, godly venue of St Paul’s Cathedral to witness the reckoning of Raven Chacon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ensemble piece, Voiceless Mass. From the visionary of composer, performer and installation artist Raven Chacon, Voiceless Mass is a reflective excursion of the history and spaces of suppressed Indigenous voices. It’s brought to life by organ, flute, clarinet, percussion, strings and sine waves. This takes place on 30 May. In other heavenly programming, Saint Levant will head to Melbourne Town Hall from 2  and4 June in his debut trip to Australia. He brings his sultry, defiant blend of funk, R&B, hip-hop and Arabic rhythms to the stage, with new material ready to roll out from his latest EP Love Letters/رسائل حب (Deluxe). Also at Melbourne Town Hall you will find intimate performances from UK producer and the soundscape wizard Daniel Avery, (Sat 6 June), and the immeasurable Welsh songwriter and art pop progresser Cate Le Bon (Wed 3 June). Max Watt’s also brings a wave of energy to the RISING tide with southern gothic slammers Wednesday, and UK dub heavyweight Adrian Sherwood.

 

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Bridging the two iconic music performance venues is festival program highlight Day Tripper. On Saturday 6 June, Day Tripper is packaged as a festival within a festival. Dividing into numbers you have twenty acts performing across eight hours of power on four stages. The lineup speaks for itself with Kae Tempest, Chanel Beads, Adrian Sherwood, Kahil El’Zabar, Sorry, The Bats, Discovery Zone, The Congos and more making their way to the mindbending music moment. 

Heading across the Yarra, Melbourne Recital Centre brings out London-based French-Senegalese neo-soul artist, anaiis, and jazzy poetry melting pot Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friends on Thursday 4 June and Friday 5 June, respectively. Under the same Arts Centre Melbourne banner, both TR/ST and Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 take to Hamer Hall for pulsing shows – one dark, and hypnotic electro-goth, the other bouncy with explosive Afrobeat energy.

 

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In a co-presentation with ACMI, The Vinyl Factory: Reverb lands at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image institution all the way from London. This multi-sensory exhibition honours the analogue, taking you into the scenes and sounds that influenced music, arts, fashion, film, and culture. The exhibition program includes The Listening Room, a sonic sanctuary that by day allows visitors to be submerged in sound, and after hours, the space transforms for exclusive sessions, talks, and listening parties featuring RISING artists rarely seen up close. These intimate experiences are curated by Yasmine Sharaf, Triple R’s Cease + Desist presenter and an expert in underground music. The Vinyl Factory: Reverb runs for the entire duration of RISING, and beyond until 31 August.

More than music: An expansive program to sink into  

 

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Outside of music, RISING rolls out an impressive lineup of bold and inspired performances. There’s Australian premieres for works for Florentina Holzinger’s shocking and electric A Year Without Summer, a cinematic Irish prayer Hard To Be Soft: A Belfast Prayer, and New York City’s performance artist Narcissister’s Voyage Into Infinity: three distinct performances works bound to captivate. In a festival first, 2026 welcomes the inaugural national dance festival, the Australian Dance Biennale. Explore the diversity and strength of Australia’s dance scene alongside international works in surprising settings. Or you can enter the Melbourne season premiere of Nowhere, a moving anti-biography theatre performance running at Malthouse Theatre, starring and written by Khalid Abdalla (who played Dodi Fayed in The Crown).

Keep connected to your live music scene here.

With such a significant festival program, RISING is a festival that invites lingering. Book a stay at RISING’s Hotel partner, Hotel Indigo to embed yourself in the RISING experience and the city that pulses with creative energy every day of the week.

RISING runs 27 May—08 June 2026. Find out more, and purchase tickets here.