Brisbane's BrisAsia Festival Is Back for 2025 with Street Food Celebrations, K-Pop and a Rooftop Party
Spend ten days welcoming in the Year of the Snake — including at the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens, and while listening to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
Brisbane has already welcomed in 2025, but that's not the only new year that demands celebrating. Before January is out, Lunar New Year will hit, kicking off the Year of the Snake. Fancy marking the occasion with street food in South Brisbane's Fish Lane, a rooftop party in Sunnybank, watching the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens light up, listening to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, dancing to K-pop, giggling to stand-up comedy or enjoying a DJ-spun soundtrack? At BrisAsia Festival, you can.
For 13 years now, the River City has commemorated Lunar New Year with a citywide fest, and that isn't changing in 2025. This year's lineup includes 25 events around town, all designed to get you in celebration mode. The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art forms part of 2025's program, if you need another excuse to head to Queensland Art Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art to check it out between now and April, but the bulk of the BrisAsia fun takes place across ten days from Friday, January 31–Sunday, February 9.
After debuting in 2024, Asian street festival Lush is back again this year, with Southside Restaurant, Hello Please, Chu the Phat and Bird's Nest set to serve up bites to eat. That's just one of BrisAsia 2025's fests within the broader fest. While the Hội chợ Tết (TET Festival) is taking place in advance, on Friday, January 24, the Vietnamese festivities in Richlands are still included on the lineup. And, Southside by Night is back, once more combining street food with a car meet in Willawong.
The Sunnybank Lunar New Year Rooftop Party is always a highlight, showcasing Sunnybank Plaza's eateries, busting out lion and dragon dance performances, and capping the night off with fireworks. Consider it the perfect way to help close out BrisAsia 2025, with the shindig happening on Saturday, February 8.
New in 2025 is Lunar New Year in the Gardens at Mt Coot-tha, complete with sitar tunes, martial-arts displays, street food and K-pop. For more of the latter, the Thomas Dixon Centre is hosting a showcase.
Other events for your calendar include BrisAsia Stands Up, enlisting Brisbane's Asian Australian comedians; a special presentation at Brisbane Planetarium; Longwang featuring Korean dishes across a Seoul-themed weekend; and Warehouse 25's BEAT STREET party in Milton. Or, albeit just after the fest's official dates — on Sunday, February 16 — you can catch the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at QPAC.
Whichever part of the festival piques your interest, expect plenty of company, with more than 25,000 people attending BrisAsia in 2024.
"It's such a privilege to curate one of the most innovative and diverse festivals in Australia with an exciting program of events combining elements of traditional and contemporary Asian culture," said BrisAsia Festival Executive Producer Anthony Garcia.
"The festival is brought to life by more than 200 artists, producers and creatives whose work allows us to celebrate life and art in a way that brings together people from all walks of life, offering artists opportunities to experiment, collaborate and evolve their practice whilst giving audiences the chance to experience world-class entertainment."
BrisAsia 2025 runs from Friday, January 31–Sunday, February 9. For further details, head to the Brisbane City Council website.
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