St Kilda Festival

03/08/2026

There's 1 week left to enter the New Music Competition! We're scouring the country to find up to 10 talented emerging artists/groups to play on the New Music Stage at St Kilda Festival on Sunday 21 February 🏆 Enter here: https://bit.ly/4hzuTcS

📷 2025 winner .music performing on the Main Stage

24/07/2026

Entries to the New Music Competition for 2027 are now open 🎶 We’re searching across Australia for up to 10 talented original artists/bands to perform on the New Music Stage at St Kilda Festival next year.

Selected acts will perform a 30-minute set of original material at St Kilda Festival on Sunday 21 February 2027, with the crowd favourite taking home:

- A $5,000 cash prize
- An invitation to perform on one of our key stages at St Kilda Festival in 2028

Entries close on Monday 10th August at 5pm. We can't wait to hear your work 🫶

📷 2026 winner The Carp Factory

The New Music Competition has been a celebrated part of St Kilda Festival since 2007 and has hosted acts that have become some of the country’s most notable artists including Baker Boy, Missy Higgins, Client Liaison, and more.

09/07/2026

Save the dates 🗓️ St Kilda Festival returns 20 - 21 February 2027!

We can't wait for another epic weekend of summer celebrations and Australian live music. Add Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 February to your diaries and stay tuned here for announcements!

📷 Will Hamilton-Coates

14/04/2026

Vote for St Kilda Festival 🏆 Australia’s largest free music festival has been nominated in the Arts and Culture category of the upcoming National Awards for Local Government!

Public voting is now open and takes around 5 minutes to complete, so we'd love your support: https://bit.ly/4j2zC4T

Voting closes on 4 May 2026 at 11.55 PM

25/02/2026

The votes are in! The winner of this year's New Music Competition is The Carp Factory 🏆

From hundreds of entries, ten of Australia’s best music acts were selected to play on this year's New Music Stage. They battled it out for a coveted spot on one of our key stages at St Kilda Fest 2027 and $5,000 cash. Each and every one of them crushed their set – so huge congrats to The Carp Factory for winning!

We can’t wait to see you perform at the 2027 festival 🎉

24/02/2026

360,000 smiling people, incredible Australian music, local community celebrations, topped with perfect weather at our beautiful foreshore - what a festival 🫶

The energy, enthusiasm and care we saw from festivalgoers was truly incredible. We couldn't have asked for a better crowd to celebrate 20 years of First Peoples First and 45 years of St Kilda Festival.

A special thanks also goes out to all of the incredible performers and every single person who contributed to making the festival weekend come together.

We can't wait to do it all again next year 💖

St Kilda Festival has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, and by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. A massive shoutout to our sponsors and partners who made the Festival possible:

Optus, Australian Survivor on Channel 10, Coca-Cola, Ello, Genki Forest, Indomie, JBL, Leap Event Technology, Lee K*m Kee Australia, Red Bull, Sodaly, Stomping Ground Brewing Co, Vanessa's Place, Acland Street Village St Kilda, Fitzroy Street - St Kilda, IGA, South East Water - Melbourne, Australia, Beat Magazine

📸 Will Hamilton-Coates, Josh Braybrook, David Cook, Tiffany Garvie

18/02/2026

Jessica Mauboy had the whole audience beaming with her utterly joyful set on Big Festival Sunday ✨

📷 Will Hamilton-Coates

17/02/2026

Vote for your favourite act from the New Music Stage! All ten of the incredibly talented artists who performed at this stage on Sunday crushed their sets. But there can be only one winner – and the choice is yours 🏆

In order of appearance: Earthlike, Wild Gloriosa, Magnets, Effie Isobel, OSITA, The Carp Factory, Kitsch Kitchen, Sunsick Daisy, Ivoris, Bcharre بشرّي

Vote now at the link below and go in the draw to win an epic prize pack from JBL valued at over $700.

https://www.stkildafestival.com.au/new-music-competition/

Don't wait, voting closes on Sunday 22 February at 11.59 pm.

📷 David Cook

16/02/2026

What a show! Mental As Anything returned for a historic comeback, 25 years after they last played at St Kilda Festival. The crowd was packed and atmosphere electric for all the legendary hits in the sunshine.

📷 Will Hamilton-Coates