The AFL has revealed a major boost to its 2025 Grand Final entertainment, adding a wave of Australian artists to join headline act Snoop Dogg at the MCG on Saturday 27 September. Leading the charge is Tash Sultana, who will take to the stage as part of Snoop Dogg’s band. The Melbourne multi-instrumentalist is tipped for a “show-stopping guitar performance.” They said, “It’s not every day you get chosen to join Snoop’s band and perform at the AFL Grand Final in front of 100,000 people, with millions more tuning in around the world.” Baker Boy will also step into the…
Author: Melbourning
Melbourne is set to host the first Asia-Pacific edition of the award-winning Formula 1 Exhibition, offering fans an immersive journey through the sport’s past, present and future. Opening on Saturday 29 November 2025 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, the exhibition arrives just ahead of the F1 season opener at Albert Park. Melbourne will become the eighth city worldwide to host the official F1 Exhibition, following record-breaking tours across Europe and the Americas, with stops in Madrid, Vienna, Toronto, Buenos Aires, London and Amsterdam, where the show was extended due to overwhelming demand. The exhibition offers fans up-close encounters…
The AFL has announced the return of the Grand Final Footy Festival at Yarra Park, running from Wednesday 24 September to Saturday 27 September. Entry is free, and this year’s festival promises more action, more laughs, and plenty of footy fever outside the MCG. Geelong premiership player Zach Tuohy is already circling it on his calendar. “I will definitely be bringing the family down to the Footy Fest this year, it’s such a great event and there’s something for everyone!” he said. “Hopefully the Cats are playing in the Grand Final for an even a bigger and better Grand Final week!” The festival hub…
Reuben Kaye, cabaret’s fearless provocateur, makes his Melbourne Recital Centre debut with the Victorian premiere of enGORGED – a riot of music, wit and unapologetic excess on 28 November 2025. Taking over the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Kaye is not just turning it up, he’s blowing the roof off. With an 18-piece orchestra under the musical direction of Shanon D Whitelock, enGORGED is billed as the comic’s flashiest, funniest and most fearless endeavour yet. Think razor-sharp political bite, sequinned spectacle, and a voice that can out-sing the chandeliers. Originally commissioned by the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, this new work is Kaye at his most unrestrained: brutal, camp, and devastatingly…
Two bananas, duct-taped to a gallery wall, wake up to find themselves the star attraction. What happens next is part absurdist clowning, part art-world satire, and 100% bananas. How to Art, winner of the Melbourne Fringe Tour Ready Award 2025, lands at Melbourne Fringe Festival from 8–19 October 2025 with its Australian premiere. Created by New Zealand’s Ratbags Theatre, this award-winning physical theatre mash-up peels back the art world’s gloss to expose the bruises beneath. In a landscape obsessed with youth, perfection, and mass production, can two battered bananas hold their own? Or will they ripen, rot, and be sold to the highest bidder?…
What happens when an ancient guzheng collides with a jazz piano and a rocking percussionist inside the Chinese Museum? Audiences will find out when Elysian Blues II hits Melbourne for one explosive return season at this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival. The genre-bending trio pairs the guzheng – a 21-string Chinese zither famed for its delicate, harp-like tones – with jazz piano and percussion, creating a sound that’s bold, unpredictable and defiantly modern. Guzheng artist QiQi leads the charge, performing on two instruments and switching between them mid-song as the music veers from meditative to rhythm-fuelled chaos. After a sold-out debut…
Visitors to the Great Ocean Road now have a striking new way to experience the power of the Southern Ocean, with the opening of the $8 million Poombeeyt Koontapool lookout at Loch Ard Gorge in Port Campbell National Park. Officially opened today by Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events Steve Dimopoulos, the platform offers sweeping views over the dramatic blowhole site. Its name, Poombeeyt Koontapool, means “Breath of the Whale” in the Keerray Woorroong language, reflecting the cultural significance of the area for the Eastern Maar people. The project supported 44 local jobs during construction and has delivered a…
Melbourne will take centre stage in 2027 as host of the World Tram Driver Championship, the first time the global competition has been held outside Europe. The announcement comes as two Australian drivers and their coach – dubbed the Tramaroos – compete this weekend in Vienna against 24 countries in events testing precision stopping, speed control and driving skill. Australia first entered the competition in 2022, breaking ground as the first non-European nation to join the field in Leipzig, Germany. Home to the largest tram network in the world, Melbourne runs more than 250 kilometres of double track with over…
Melbourne’s suburbs are set for a major boost in shade and greenery, with the state government committing $9.5 million to plant 500,000 new trees across the city. The initiative expands on the existing More Trees for a Cooler Greener West program, which has already seen 500,000 trees planted across Melbourne’s western suburbs. The new More Trees in Melbourne program targets local government areas with low canopy cover and high heat vulnerability. Alongside tree planting, a high-resolution mapping project will track canopy growth across Melbourne, helping councils and planners direct resources to areas most in need. From tomorrow, planning permit rules…
For the first time since its Red Stitch debut in 2019, Keziah Warner’s sci-fi odyssey Control is back to challenge and electrify Melbourne audiences. Set across fifty years and spanning from Melbourne to Mars, the play fuses space colonisation, reality TV, and the rise of artificial intelligence into a sharp meditation on memory, identity, and power. A pregnant ex-ballerina, a child detective, a jaded puppeteer, and a pop star feminist hurtle towards Mars under the gaze of a watching world – if anyone is still watching at all. Elsewhere, as revolution brews, humans wrestle with the creeping handover of autonomy…
Bendigo will play host to top-flight basketball and receive a boost to its sporting infrastructure, with Melbourne United set to play four NBL games in the city and upgrades now underway at both Bendigo Stadium and Bendigo Showgrounds. Two-time champions Melbourne United will face the Cairns Taipans on January 7 and the Brisbane Bullets on January 21 at Bendigo Stadium, with two further games locked in for the 2027 NBL season. Alongside the matches, United will deliver a basketball development program across the region, bringing school visits and coaching clinics to local students. Bendigo’s own Dash Daniels will return home…