From Swarovski-studded cabaret shows to river flotillas, from gay PowerPoint nights to sweaty dance floors. . . Melt Festival returns to Brisbane, promising a city-wide celebration of internationally-acclaimed artists, homegrown icons, premieres, and brilliance.
The 2025 event follows a record-breaking, traffic-stopping 2024.
Fearless cabaret performer Reuben Kaye unleashes the Queensland premiere of ‘enGORGEd’, featuring Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra, and musical direction from Shanon D Whitelock.
Ben Graetz (Miss Ellaneous) presents the ‘Miss First Nation’ drag pageant, as it makes its Melt debut, celebrating Blak excellence, creativity and culture with glamorous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander queens. Expect jaw-dropping performances, powerful storytelling, and cultural pride.
New musical ‘The Lucky Country’ will tackle the question ‘what does it mean to be Australian in 2025’, directed by Sonya Suares with music and lyrics by Vidya Makan.
River Pride Parade will make its return, bringing a flotilla of fabulousness down the Brisbane River. If you’ve got a boat, you can register your interest to join the fleet – and if you don’t have a boat, you can get ready to ‘Splash Out’, as Harry K launches a queer boat party.
‘Queer PowerPoint’ is back, and gayer, geekier and more unhinged.
Iconic star of stage and screen, Bernadette Peters, returns for her first Australian performance in more than a decade, with ‘An Evening With Bernadette Peters’. She’ll sing songs and share stories, accompanied by Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra.
Last year, the festival called for the queer community and its allies, to get nude. . . And 5,500 people answered the call for Spencer Tunick’s monumental installation on the Story Bridge. This year, get vocal! ‘1000 Voices’ is a major choral event uniting queer and ally choirs and solo singers.
‘Hole-Mania 2.0’ promises an unhinged, high-energy queer wrestle-party at The Tivoli, hosted by queer dance party icon Shandy, and drag menace Gogo Bumhole. Then, horror meets high drag in ‘Scream Queen’, starring drag royalty Naomi Smalls, Yvie Oddly, and Kyran Thrax.
In the realm of theatre there’s ‘Malacañang Made Us’, exploring the Filipino-Australian diaspora with epic scale and emotional grit. ‘Whitefella Yella Tree’ at La Boite Theatre offers a luminous love story between two Aboriginal boys on the brink of invasion, and Gerwyn Davies’ new work ‘Shimmer’ brings identity-focused photographic portraits to the Museum Of Brisbane.
Elsewhere at Melt Festival, you can catch the return of Micah Rustichelli’s Demon Rhythm, challenging the value of image consumption, SEXY GAY ART at VENTspace – a saucy, subversive showcase of queer desire in all its forms, and ‘Femme Follies Burlesque’, a sapphic spin on classic cabaret. Rounding things out is ‘Still Lives Brisbane’ by Luke George and Daniel Kok, a roped-up homage to the city’s punk past.
Tickets on sale from 10am today (3 June).
Melt Festival is on in Brisbane 22 October-9 November.
This story originally appeared on our queer sister site, FROOTY.
