You may already know Melbourne — its laneways, late-night bars, and gallery haunts — but you don’t know it like this.
For a few heady weeks this winter, RISING turns the city inside out, upside down, and pulses with life well beyond the beaten path.
Just an hour’s train ride from the familiar, RISING 2025 is calling with a program that’s equal parts art rave, soul excavation, cultural jam session, and cosmic playground. The streets buzz with sound. The stages blaze with new forms. And it all starts with curiosity.
RISING 2025
- 65 events, 327 artists, 15 new commissions, nine world premieres
- RISING will run from Wednesday 4 June to Sunday 15 June
Keep up with the latest music news, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
RISING: Day Tripper
- When: Saturday 7 June, 12pm
- Where: Multiple venues
- King’s Birthday weekend across multiple venues
- Single ticket grants access to Melbourne Town Hall, Max Watt’s and Night Trade
- Eight hours of continuous music and art
Start with the spine of this year’s music programming; Day Tripper. It’s not just a gig; it’s a city-within-a-city for one glorious day. With 25 acts spread across four stages in and around the Forum, Max Watt’s and Night Trade, this genre-hopping, multi-floor, dance-all-day party is where underground gems and breakout stars collide.
First Frequency: Featuring RONA, DJ PGZ
- When: Saturday 7 June, 9pm
- Where: Melbourne Town Hall
- Late night Melbourne Town Hall event following Daytripper
- Kaytetye producer and DJ fusing Country soundscapes with dance music
- Joined by Gunai/Kurnai and Yorta Yorta artist DJ PGZ
On your next stop after Daytripper, Kaytetye producer and DJ RONA takes you into moonlight with an epic late night takeover of Melbourne Town Hall with First Frequency. Set to be RONA’s next major gig after touring Australia and New Zealand with Laneaway, her productions fuse the rich soundscapes of Country with lush, driving synths, grounding homegrown rhythms in global dancefloor traditions.
She’ll be joined by Gunai/Kurnai and Yorta Yorta artist DJ PGZ, who’ll be filling the hall with techno and global club styles honouring the Black and Brown pioneers of club music.
For one night only: Beth Gibbons
- When: Sunday 1 June, 5.30pm and 8.30pm
- Where: Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
- One night only at Hamer Hall
- Portishead vocalist’s first solo album in over 20 years
- Rare live appearance following collaborations with Kendrick Lamar and MF Doom
For one night only, the queen of yearning, Beth Gibbons (Portishead), graces RISING with LIVES OUTGROWN, her hauntingly beautiful, long-awaited solo debut. In the grandeur of Hamer Hall, her voice will unfurl like smoke, weaving a journey through darkness and dappled light.
Still haunting after all these years, the Portishead vocalist performs both her solo material and rare Portishead tracks, evoking emotional landscapes that are at once fractured and full.
A performance program without rules
RISING’s performance program doesn’t ask permission, it just straight up goes for it. Whether it’s condensing the euphoric chaos of a three-day doof into a one-hour emotional sprint or exploring heartbreak as both comedy and science, the lines between genre, experience, and expectation blur beautifully.
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The Butterfly Who Flew into the Rave
- When: 12 – 14 June, 8.30pm
- Where: Buxton Contemporary
- One-hour rave condensation at Buxton Contemporary
- Created by New Zealand-Aotearoa’s club legends Oli Mathiesen, Lucy Lynch, and Sharvon Mortimer
- High-energy LED-lit performance celebrating club culture
A rave, condensed into a single hour. Enough said? Not quite, this theatrical thrill-ride mirrors the euphoric, euphorically messy trajectory of a three-day doof. Wild visuals, physical theatre, and pure sweat.
A realm, where music fans become victims to their passions. Where societal mores and political structures get temporarily pulverised by the bpm. And where the shuffle and spin is the only way to win, again and again and again.
Heartbreak Hotel by EBKM
- When: 10 – 22 June, various show times
- Where: The Showroom, Arts Centre Melbourne
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- Edinburgh Fringe hit making Australian premiere at Arts Centre Melbourne
- Hilariously offbeat exploration of heartbreak featuring Karin McCracken and Simon Leary
- Created by award-winning Aotearoa New Zealand theatre company
Check into Heartbreak Hotel, a hilariously offbeat exploration of heartbreak by acclaimed Aotearoa New Zealand company EBKM. Dressed in lavender tassels and backed by the ultimate breakup soundtrack, think Elvis, Celine, and the greats, Karin McCracken guides us through the messy, absurd, and all-too-relatable aftermath of a serious split.
What happens to your body and mind when your heart breaks? Heartbreak Hotel turns the science of sadness into absurd comedy. Think TED Talk meets emotional exorcism, with jokes. Funny, strange, and weirdly validating.
Complete Works: Tabletop Shakespeare
- When: 6 – 15 June, various show times
- Where: Guild Theatre, University of Melbourne
- 36 of Shakespeare’s works over nine nights
- Household objects stand in for characters at University of Melbourne’s Guild Theatre
- Created by experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment
Shakespeare’s timeless tales get a playful, kitchen-table makeover in Complete Works: Tabletop Shakespeare, where six performers condense most of his plays using nothing but wit, imagination, and household objects. A vase becomes a prince, a jar transforms into Juliet, and a bottle of Dettol stands in for the nurse.
Covering 36 of Shakespeare’s works over nine days and nights of the festival, a new story unfolds, proving that the heart of Shakespeare’s work isn’t in grand sets or elaborate costumes but in the sheer power of storytelling. Created by the acclaimed experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment and presented at the University of Melbourne Arts and Culture’s Guild Theatre, this inventive retelling strips Shakespeare down as you’ve never seen it before.
The Act: Dance meets sex work
- When: 11-14 June, 8pm
- Where: Chunky Moves Studio
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- Chunky Move performance by Amrita Hepi and Tilly Lawless
- Explores intersections of dance and sex work
- Examines body as vehicle for both professional service and personal expression
For a dance work with a more intimate lean, head to Chunky Move for The Act by choreographer and dancer Amrita Hepi and sex worker and writer Tilly Lawless. The new work explores the intersections of dance and sex work, examining the body as a vessel for both professional service and personal expression, challenging conventional perceptions of labour, authenticity, and representation.
Framed by Daniel Janatch’s baroque sound design and directed by Mish Grigor, each performer speaks and moves within charged ambiguities, the body as a vehicle for desire and for expression.
BLKDOG: Botis Seva’s hip hop masterpiece
- When: 4 – 7 June, various show times
- Where: The Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
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- Olivier Award-winning work direct from London’s West End
- Australian premiere at Arts Centre Melbourne
- Features seven hooded dancers and score by Torben Lars
Direct from the West End – BLKDOG – London-born Botis Seva’s Olivier Award-winning hip hop masterpiece arrives in Melbourne for the first time at Arts Centre Melbourne, ready to take audiences on a wild and transformative ride. With a pounding score by longtime collaborator Torben Lars, a squadron of seven dancers, cloaked in hooded caps, immerse the audience in a hallucinatory journey marked by violence and an unsettling, dead-eyed fascination.
RISING: Free Program
Perhaps the true heart of RISING lies in its free program; the stuff you stumble upon between venues, the late-night installations that appear like mirages, the surreal side-street moments that remind you: you’re not just in a festival. You’re inside a living artwork.
BLOCKBUSTER brings Pakistani stars to Melbourne
- When: Saturday 7 June, 3-8pm
- Where: Fed Square
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The headline announcement is BLOCKBUSTER, an electrifying free celebration of South Asian culture taking over Fed Square on Saturday 7 June. Named after viral hit song Blockbuster, which amassed over 61 million YouTube views in 2024, this world premiere event brings contemporary Pakistani music, eye-catching Punjabi truck art installations and street food to the heart of Melbourne.
Headlining the event is Faris Shafi, the multilingual rapper known as the “uncensored voice of Pakistan” and creator of the original Blockbuster hit. Joining him is a powerhouse lineup including acclaimed producer Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan (professionally known as Xulfi), whose work with Coke Studio seasons 14 and 15 achieved a combined 2.5 billion streams worldwide.
The BLOCKBUSTER lineup also features Annural Khalid, Spotify Pakistan’s most-streamed female artist of 2024 whose hit Jhol has garnered over 300 million streams across 173 countries. Completing the bill are global charting qawwali duo Zain and Zohaib bringing their soulful take on centuries-old Sufi tradition, and Sherry Khattak, frontman of rock band Karakoram.
This cultural showcase, presented by Fed Square, SalamFest and RISING, promises to transport audiences with the legendary Coke Studio Pakistan house band delivering dynamic performances that span rap, pop, qawwali, and genre-defying soundscapes.
Shohei Fujimoto: Intangible #Form
- When: 4 – 15 June, from 5pm – 10.30pm daily
- Where: The Captiol, RMIT
- Free installation at The Capitol Theatre
- Former TeamLAB collective member’s Australian debut
- Precision-mapped red laser beams create an immersive light sculpture
The Capitol Theatre becomes ground zero for RISING’s largest installation to date with Japanese artist Shohei Fujimoto’s Australian debut, Intangible #Form. The former TeamLAB collective member will transform the historic venue into a living sculpture of kinetic light, with precision-mapped red beams responding to movement and perception. Free to explore every night of the festival, visitors can step into darkness, lose themselves in light, and emerge directly into the energy of Night Trade.
Night Trade
- When: 4 – 15 June
- Where: Multiple locations
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- Capitol Arcade and Howey Place late-night hub
- Features microbars, eateries and Mummy’s Plastic karaoke
- Nyege Nyege festival DJs bringing African electronic music
Night Trade returns, pulsing through the Capitol Arcade and spilling its neon-lit energy down Howey Place and beyond. From killer cocktails at microbars and feasts at local eateries to microphone-fueled karaoke sessions with Mummy’s Plastic, this is the late-night hub of RISING.
Party starters from Lake Victoria’s Nyege Nyege festival will be in charge of the aux chord, bringing the vanguard of African electronic music. This is just the beginning with more surprises to be revealed in the lead up to the festival. Whether you’re dropping in or riding the full wave of Night Trade’s chaos, the alleys are open for play.
Melbourne Art Trams: First Peoples tribute
- When: Thursday 12 June, on the tracks for 12 months
- Where: Throughout Melbourne
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- Six trams showcasing century-spanning First Peoples women’s art
- Curated by Victorian First Peoples
The Melbourne Art Trams project returns, this time with a poignant and culturally rich tribute to First Peoples women. Carefully selected by Victorian First Peoples curators, the 2025 edition showcases artworks drawn from archives and community art centres across Melbourne and regional Victoria. These vibrant pieces, spanning over a century, will be emblazoned on six trams journeying through the city, creating a moving canvas of history and heritage.
So hop on the train, bring your best jacket and don’t just visit Melbourne this winter — lose yourself in it. RISING 2025 isn’t just happening in the city. It is the city.
