Big Red Bash to end after final festival in 2027
The outback music festival will run one last time in July 2027, its organisers say, after floods wiped out this year's event when it was 90 per cent sold.
50 articles by Zoe Mercer
Bracewell and McDonald to host the 40th ARIA Awards
Melanie Bracewell and Tim McDonald will host the 40th ARIA Awards on 18 November, streaming first on Paramount+ before going to air on 10.
Genesis Owusu and Tame Impala lead ARIA nominations
Genesis Owusu and Tame Impala lead the 40th ARIA Awards with eight nominations each, as ARIA takes aim at foreign AI companies over copyright.
Rachel Griffiths returns to MTC in its 2027 season
Melbourne Theatre Company unveils 11 productions for 2027, with Rachel Griffiths as painter Clarice Beckett. Subscriptions become memberships.
Arts Centre strike cancels Macy Gray's tour opener
A 24-hour stoppage at Arts Centre Melbourne from midnight Thursday has taken three Friday performances off, including the opening night of Macy Gray's Australian tour. The pay offer at the centre of the dispute is the Victorian government's own 3 per cent wage cap.
Radiohead fix prices for 16-show Australian return
Radiohead will play 16 arena shows in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in May and June 2027, their first in Australia since 2012, and tickets will be sold only to registered fans at fixed prices with face-value resale. The protections arrive because the dynamic-pricing ban the federal government promised in 2024 never made it into law.
Peedom's Everest drama Tenzing premieres at Telluride
Jennifer Peedom's first dramatic feature, Tenzing, had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on Saturday night, with Tom Hiddleston as Edmund Hillary and Genden Phuntsok as the Sherpa who reached the summit with him. Apple releases it in cinemas on 9 October.
Fox Sports brand to vanish as Kayo takes over in 2027
Foxtel will retire the 30-year-old Fox Sports name in 2027 and fold Fox Footy, Fox League and Fox Cricket into Kayo Sports, its new owner DAZN told advertisers in Sydney, alongside a Real Housewives of Melbourne revival and Rachel Griffiths joining Wentworth: Halfway Home.
Guy Pearce's Murdoch opens Venice in Boyle's Ink
Danny Boyle's Ink, with Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch buying The Sun in 1969, opened the 83rd Venice Film Festival in competition. Pearce says Murdoch's daughter told him her father is happy with the casting.
Blue poles to hang in Perth for the first time
Jackson Pollock's Blue poles will show at the Art Gallery of Western Australia from April to September 2027, its first loan to an Australian venue since 2003, while the National Gallery closes wings for repairs.
NSW puts $3.8 million into 33 live music venues
Thirty-three NSW live music venues will share $3.8 million for soundproofing, lighting and staging, after a run of Sydney closures.
Eight Australian albums land, one cracks the ten
Peking Duk, Kate Miller-Heidke, King Gizzard and five more debut on the ARIA Australian albums chart this week. Only Peking Duk makes the main top ten.
Australians want local content but cannot find it
Screen Australia's Screen Currency 2026 has 84 per cent calling local content important and 36 per cent able to find it easily.
Sam Pang wins Gold Logie, Mailman into Hall of Fame
Deborah Mailman is the first Indigenous performer inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame. Robert Irwin hosted at 22, the youngest to take the job.
Stan drama The F Ward sells into 100 markets
Paramount has licensed the six-part Stan Original into 100 territories, including Channel 4, HBO Asia and JioHotstar, before its overseas launch.
Casey Barnes leads five Australian chart debuts
Made For This entered the ARIA Australian artist albums chart at No.1 and the all comers chart at No.6, one of five new Australian records in the top six.
Eurovision bars countries at war from hosting
The EBU will strip hosting rights from a winning broadcaster whose country is affected by armed conflict, three months after Israel finished second in Vienna.
Tina Arena documentary premieres at MIFF
Adrian Russell Wills' Tina Arena: Unravel Me has its world premiere at The Astor on Wednesday, a fortnight before a national cinema release on 27 August.
Suzi Quatro books her 41st Australian tour
Suzi Quatro will play six headline shows with Baby Animals in November and December, plus four Red Hot Summer dates. Tickets go on sale Wednesday.
Gang of Youths return for sold-out Opera House debut
The band played the Concert Hall on Saturday night, their first Australian show in almost five years. A second sold-out date follows on Monday.
DMA'S release fifth album, tour dates set
The Sydney trio's self-titled record landed on Friday through Sony, with three east coast shows booked across late November and December.
MIFF opens its 74th festival with Wicker
The Melbourne International Film Festival opens Thursday with the Australian premiere of Wicker, leading a program of more than 300 works over 18 days.
Amy Shark's No.1 album streak ends at three
Soft Pop entered the ARIA Albums Chart at No.2 behind Charli XCX, the first Amy Shark record not to debut at the top in four releases.
MIFF names 2026 nominees for $300,000 in prizes
Ten first and second features contend for the $140,000 Bright Horizons Award. MIFF runs 6 to 23 August, with the awards presented on 22 August.
Indie music week opens in Adelaide as AIR turns 20
Indie-Con Australia opens in Adelaide on Wednesday ahead of the 20th AIR Awards, with Ninajirachi leading nominations across 23 categories.
Odyssey holds number one with $11.45m second weekend
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey took $11.45 million at the Australian box office in its second weekend, lifting its local total to $29.9 million.
Two Australian debuts top the local ARIA albums chart
Holly Hebe's EP Mood Ring and Swapmeet's debut album Mount Zero, both released on 17 July, entered the ARIA Australian artist albums chart at one and two.
Old Mervs announce national tour and album Carparks
Perth duo Old Mervs announced a nine-date Australia and New Zealand tour and a new album, Carparks, out in October, with the artist presale for tickets opening on Thursday.
The Temper Trap return with a No.1 Australian album
The Temper Trap's Sungazer, the Melbourne band's first album in a decade, has debuted at number one on the ARIA Australian albums chart and number nine overall.
Terence Donovan, Neighbours' Doug Willis, dies at 90
The actor behind Neighbours patriarch Doug Willis died peacefully in Melbourne on Saturday night, aged 90, his sons Jason and Paul announced.
Odyssey posts Nolan record with Australia fourth
The Odyssey opened to an estimated US$264.1 million worldwide, Christopher Nolan's biggest launch, with Australia's US$9.3 million his fourth-best market.
Odyssey banks 2026's biggest Australian opening day
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey took US$3.7 million in Australia in two days, the year's biggest opening day, as its global launch neared US$40 million.
The Odyssey opens to a Melbourne IMAX gold rush
Nolan's Homer epic opened in Australia with the Southern Hemisphere's only IMAX 70mm run selling 17,000 tickets in a day and a 98 per cent RT debut.
Creators put $500m price on unlicensed AI training
APRA AMCOS puts unlicensed AI training at $500m over four years for local music creators as the industry backs the PM's 'anything less is theft' line.
T. rex Gus sells for record US$50.1m at Sotheby's
An anonymous phone bidder paid US$50.1 million for the 67-million-year-old fossil, an auction record for a dinosaur, and palaeontologists want it in a museum.
Sam Neill dies at 78, months after beating cancer
The Jurassic Park and My Brilliant Career actor died in Sydney surrounded by family, less than three months after announcing he was cancer-free.
Music industry agrees its first AI labelling standard
The global recorded music industry has agreed a voluntary standard marking tracks as AI-Generated or AI-Assisted, and ARIA has welcomed it. The test case is already on Australian radio, where a rework of Madonna's Like A Prayer with no credited vocalist sits at number two.
Muse cracks ARIA top five with Wow! Signal debut
Muse's "The Wow! Signal" entered the ARIA albums chart at number two this week, behind Olivia Rodrigo's "you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love," which held number one for a third straight week on the chart dated 6 July 2026. Muse's tenth studio album has also topped the UK chart and reached number one in several other countries since its 26 June release.
MSO cleared over pianist's cancelled Gaza concert
The Federal Court dismissed every claim Jayson Gillham brought against the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The case turned on a protection gap between employed and contracted artists.
Bieber joins first World Cup final half-time show
Justin Bieber will join Madonna, Shakira and BTS for the first half-time show at a men's World Cup final, an 11-minute set at MetLife Stadium on July 19.
Aussie box office hits record third $100m month
Australian cinemas cleared $100 million for a third straight month in June, the first such run on record, while Pixar's Toy Story 5 held the national number one for a third weekend.
Dosanjh film pulled from Indian streaming in two days
Diljit Dosanjh's Satluj was pulled from ZEE5 in India two days after its uncut premiere. The film, and its censorship fight, keep streaming everywhere else.
Swift-Kelce wedding guests break the silence
Three days after Taylor Swift married Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden, guests have begun posting about the night, while the couple themselves have released no photos and no statement.
Harvest Rock takes second 'fallow year' in three
Adelaide's Harvest Rock will not be held in 2026, with promoter Secret Sounds calling it a 'fallow year' (the festival's second skipped year in three).
One Australian song in the ARIA top 10 at the year's halfway mark
Halfway through 2026, Tame Impala's 'Dracula' is the only Australian single to reach the ARIA top 10, and no local act has topped the singles chart all year. Just four Australian songs have entered the top 40, according to a mid-year review by music site Noise11.
Is Tinder a mistake? We asked the people who gave up and the ones who found a husband.
Fifteen years after it launched, Tinder has produced weddings, wasted years, and everything in between. The app did not change whether people find love. It changed what the search costs them.
The hostel Perth travellers keep coming back to
Spin Off Hostel on Fitzgerald Street in West Perth holds a 9.4 on Booking.com and earns the kind of reviews most hostels never see. It was built for the guest, not the operator.
Sydney Film Festival wraps record-breaking 73rd edition with Zvyagintsev's Minotaur taking top prize
Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev accepted the Sydney Film Prize in person for Minotaur at the 73rd Sydney Film Festival, which screened 248 films from 81 countries and recorded one of the strongest international lineups in its history, including 19 films direct from Cannes.
Melbourne's RISING festival closes after 13 nights with Lil' Kim, 376 artists, and a reopened ballroom
RISING 2026 ran from May 27 to June 8, transforming Melbourne landmark venues across 13 nights with 100-plus events, seven world premieres, and a program that included the reopening of the Flinders Street Ballroom as a public dance venue for the first time in years.
Launceston's Albert Hall hosts 40-plus events as Australian Musical Theatre Festival cements its home
The 2026 Australian Musical Theatre Festival ran May 20 to 24 at Launceston's recently refurbished Albert Hall, with a program spanning a new work by composer Carmel Dean, a Sondheim centrepiece, and an intimate evening tracing the career of director Delia Hannah.
