Nightjar Festival Series 2025/26: Surf Coast’s Summer Series Blooms with Markets, Music and Mindful Moments

Nightjar Festival Beats: Two Nights, Zero Dull Moments

As the sun dips behind the dunes, Nightjar’s heart rate lifts. The Nightjar Festival is the main headliner of the namesake summer series. It unfolds across two golden-hour-to-nightfall sessions, each carefully curated to feel expansive, soulful and joyfully unpretentious — the kind of lineups that reward both the curious listener and the seasoned music head.

Nightjar Festival Night One lands Friday 2 January, from 4pm–10pm, setting the tone with a bill that moves effortlessly between indie storytelling, global dance floors and sunlit psychedelia. Melbourne’s The Slingers headline the early wave, bringing their much-loved “Motel Pop” — a genre-blurring blend of rock, folk, country and electronic textures that feels nostalgic and forward-looking all at once. Their debut album Sentimentalism cracked the ARIA Top 5 and confirmed what underground fans already knew: this is a band doing something genuinely new.

From there, the night pivots to rhythm and movement. Adriana, one of Melbourne’s most exciting DJs and cultural curators, brings her trademark energy to the decks, fusing tradition with contemporary club sounds in a way that feels inclusive, ecstatic and deeply human. She’s the kind of selector who reads a crowd like a conversation, and Nightjar is her natural habitat.

Live grooves take centre stage with Bananagun, the Naarm psych-funk collective whose sun-soaked sound pulls from freak-beat, spiritual jazz and communal experimentation. Their latest release Why Is the Colour of the Sky? leans into warmth, repetition and shared joy — perfect fuel for dancing barefoot on grass. Add the soul-stirring presence of Ajak Kwai, whose multilingual funk and blues-inspired songwriting carries powerful messages of inclusion and resilience, and the homespun storytelling charm of Albert The Second, and you’ve got a night that feels intimate, expansive and deeply connected to place.

 

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Nightjar Festival Night Two follows on Friday 9 January, from 4pm–10pm, lifting the energy another notch while keeping the festival’s signature sense of soul intact. Headlining is Gordi, one of Australia’s most respected contemporary artists, whose music balances vulnerability and scale with rare finesse. From Reservoir to Our Two Skins, her work has explored identity, self-discovery and queerness with quiet power — and in a Nightjar setting, those songs are given the space to breathe.

Dance floors come alive with Sunshine, a true icon of Australia’s club culture. With decades behind the decks and an encyclopaedic love of house, disco, funk and soul, her sets radiate warmth and collective joy. Expect hands in the air, smiles everywhere and that unmistakable feeling of shared release as the light fades.

Local heroes Suneden keep the glitter ball spinning with their soul-funk boogies and disco-laced anthems, while Jess Ribeiro offers a moment of stillness and emotional depth with her haunting voice and masterful songwriting. Rounding out the night is Wild Gloriosa, whose soulful, R&B-infused songs feel both prayerful and seductive — music that invites you inward, even as the crowd sways around you.

Two nights. Two distinct moods. One unmistakable Nightjar rhythm — where great music meets sea air, community and that fleeting summer feeling you wish you could bottle.