Sydney Festival 2024

Overview

On the water, near the water and from the water: these are all some of the many ways to look at the 2024 Sydney Festival lineup, which has been announced in all of its 150-plus-event glory.

When the Harbour City welcomes back its annual arts fest in January, the event will make the absolute most of its setting. So, get ready for a version of Puccini's opera Il Tabarro onboard the Carpentaria lightship, a waterside Walsh Bay Arts Precinct takeover and a towering giant octopus sculpture that you can get closer to via a kayak tour.

Running for 24 days from Friday, January 5–Sunday, January 28, the Sydney Festival program will feature over 1000 artists and a huge lineup of events that includes 26 world premieres, 29 Australian exclusives and 43 free activities.

PICKS OF THE PROGRAM

If seeing Il Tabarro performed on a boat piques your interest, you can catch the free one-act production at the Australian National Maritime Museum without spending a cent — but you do need to book. You can also catch it from home via the livestream.

Keen on hanging out at the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct? This physical strip of the program is called The Thirsty Mile. On offer there: theatre and art, cabaret and dance, bars and speakeasies, and also a late-night club Moonshine Bar. This is where you'll marvel at a 46-metre-long installation Hi-Vis by Michael Shaw; enjoy a cabaret tribute to Kate Bush; and watch a Swedish dance double from GöteborgsOperans Danskompani — and that's just for starters.

A eight-legged sea creature lurks on the harbour thanks to Te Wheke-a-Muturangi: The Adversary by Māori artist Lisa Reihana, which'll make its home in Watermans Cove in Barangaroo to explore the tale of the discovery of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Sydney Festival's Blak Out program is similarly worth hitting up the event for alone. ILBIJERRI Theatre Company's world-premiere production Big Name, No Blankets will pay tribute to the Warumpi Band; dance performance Mutiara will also make its debut, as set among Broome's early pearling industry; and Anita Heiss adapts her own novel Tiddas for the stage.

Other standouts on the full lineup include Courtney Barnett playing a two-part performance at City Recital Hall; Night Songs at Coney Island, which will feature choral tunes at Luna Park; and Encantado, which will tell First Nations tales from Brazil thanks to Lia Rodrigues' choreographer, 11 dances and 140 bright blankets, and heads to Sydney Opera House. Also, Arka Kinari will be hitting the harbour with its music production that's powered by the sun and moved by the wind, and Kate Miller-Heidke's new musical-comedy Bananaland will make its Sydney debut.

Elsewhere, Dinosaur World Live will continue Australia's fascination with the ancient creatures (see also: Jurassic World: The Exhibition, for example); annual favourite Sydney Symphony Under the Stars: Pictures in the Sky returns to Parramatta Park; theatre production Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World riffs on murder-mystery podcasts; Orpheus & Eurydice gets reimagined in contemporary times by Opera Australia; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales' Louise Bourgeois: Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day?, Kandinsky and Tacita Dean exhibitions all link in.

Top image: Sammi Landweer.