Perth Festival 2026 will see the city itself turned into a stage, with performances and installations reimagining Perth’s landmarks – from office towers and cathedrals to riversides and the night sky – as sites of artistic discovery.

Opening on 6 February (until 1 March), the second program under Artistic Director Anna Reece promises a celebration of “this time and place”, showcasing 13 Perth Festival commissions, 20 world premieres and nine Australian premieres or exclusives across 23 days.

Reece said the Festival is about opening doors – literally and metaphorically – to reveal the creative pulse of Perth.“We don’t just put on shows, we take over the city with brilliant artists and their truth telling and mischief making. This is not just art you want – it’s art you need.”

Fine, raw or dark: The music highlights

A new fine music series, Sanctum, will take place in St Mary’s Cathedral, hosting Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, and WASO musicians led by Riley Skevington.

Chamber music stars Tommaso Lonquich, Umberto Clerici and Claudio Martínez Mehner will perform, while Swedish quartet Åkervinda will close the series with modern takes on Nordic folk songs.

Perth Symphony Orchestra will also honour David Bowie in Rebel Rebel, a one-night-only spectacular featuring special guest vocalists.

The Embassy returns to Perth Town Hall with three weeks of jazz, cabaret and soul, featuring Ali Bodycoat, Somi, Mama Kin Spender, C.W. Stoneking, Makoto Ozone, Annahastasia and Emily Lubitz.

Perth Festival’s music MainStage. Photo © Aaron Claringbold

The cabaret bill of fare include Le Gateau Chocolat’s Raw Cacao, Marney McQueen’s Broadway classics meets yacht rock, and Meow Meow in an intimate evening with former Perth Festival Artistic Director Iain Grandage.

Music also returns to the East Perth Power Station, following its award-winning activation in 2025. The Main Stage will feature EDM architect Max Cooper, Bleak Squad (rock royalty Mick Turner, Mick Harvey, Adalita and Marty Brown) and UK trip-hop survivors Morcheeba.

The riverside Casa Musica is back, too offering free outdoor performances Wednesday to Sunday showcasing musicians from across the Indian Ocean rim.

Theatre and dance

Taking over Perth’s theatres, the performance program spans drama, dance and daring ideas. Highlights include Aakash Odedra’s solo work Songs of the Bulbul, WA collective The Last Great Hunt’s faux-foreign film Lé Nør and French-Vietnamese director Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s three-hour epic LACRIMA, a lavish, questioning drama set in a prestigious fashion house charged with a commission to create the wedding dress for a British royal princess. 

LACRIMA. Photo © Jean Louis Fernandez

Opera lovers will see Philip Glass’s adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial staged in a CBD office tower by Lost and Found Opera, while West Australian Opera returns with a new secret performance at an undisclosed venue.

The powerful Scenes From the Climate Era unfolds across 66 short scenes, blending the comic, tragic and surreal, brought to life by the Western Australian Youth Theatre Company. 

Other standout shows include Jaha Koo’s Haribo Kimchi, a moving reflection on migration and home, Chunky Move’s futuristic dance spectacle U>N>I>T>E>D, and Meow Meow’s bold reimagining of The Red Shoes.

New WA works include Hugo Flavelle’s Let Me In, Let Me Out, Adam Kelly’s Dragon I, and pvi collective’s playful street-based adventure the booster protocol.

Ballet at The Quarry returns in 2026, this time with a program titled Incandescence, which blends the elegance of classical ballet with bold contemporary choreography in four world premiere works presented by WA Ballet. 

Perth Moves by STRUT Dance will be eight nights of dance classes, a one-night-only dance battle party, the world premiere of Concrete Echoes, a powerful work by award-winning Aotearoa duo Ta’alili (Aloali’i and Tori Manley-Tapu) and acclaimed Frenchchoreographer Boris Charmatz bring his en masse participatory dance work Cercles to the heart of the city with 200 dancers.

First Nations stories and visual art

The Festival’s Boorloo Contemporary exhibition returns to the Power Station, with new commissions and solo shows from First Nations artists. The building’s façade will be transformed by Lance Chadd Tjyllyungoo, whose vast landscape paintings intertwine Noongar spiritual stories, while Kait James’s vibrant embroidered pennants will use pop culture and humour to critique colonial stereotypes.

The luminous Karla Bidi will once again light up the Derbarl Yerrigan / Swan River, with beacons stretching from the hills to the Indian Ocean. The experience, grounded in Noongar tradition, will include new song and story soundscapes.

The BhuMeJha Project invites audiences to the Perth Hills for a night of ceremony and storytelling, while Nitja will transform Point Walter with music, dance and projected animation in a free riverside celebration.

The 2026 Festival opens online with A View From A Bridge – not the Arthur Miller classic but a moving digital project by British artist Joe Bloom, one that foregrounds human connection in the digital age. Created to be shared across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, the Australian premiere invites the people and bridges of Perth to form part of a viral global artwork.

Tickets go on sale 27 October at midday AWST/3pm AEST.

Visit perthfestival.com.au for the full program and booking details.