Melt Festival 2025: Brisbane’s Bold LGBTQIA+ Celebration Returns with Bernadette Peters, Miss First Nation, River Pride Parade + More
Brisbane/Magandjin’s premier celebration of LGBTQIA+ art and culture, Melt Festival 2025, has unveiled its full program — and it’s bigger, bolder, and queerer than ever. Running from 22 October to 9 November 2025, the citywide festival will transform more than 60 venues across 18 days with hundreds of events spanning music, theatre, comedy, drag, burlesque, cabaret, visual art and protest.
Headlining this year’s program is legendary Broadway and screen icon Bernadette Peters, who will perform exclusively for Melt at the Brisbane Convention Centre on 24 October — her first Australian show in over a decade. Another major highlight is the arrival of Miss First Nation 2025, the country’s fiercest Blak drag pageant, making its Brisbane debut after a star turn at Sydney WorldPride.
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Audiences can also expect a spectacular return of the River Pride Parade on 8 November, with a rainbow flotilla cruising the Brisbane River/Maiwar and a family-friendly River Pride Picnic at New Farm Park, complete with food trucks, live music and fireworks.
Other program standouts include Gerwyn Davies’ Shimmer, a collaboration with trans and gender diverse youth presented at Museum of Brisbane; cabaret firecracker Tomáš Kantor’s Sugar; comedy superstar Urzila Carlson; and the high-octane return of BRIEFS: Jealousss. New in 2025 is Melting Pot, a pop-up venue at Brisbane Powerhouse pulsing with Queer music, drag and late-night energy.
Melt Executive Producer Emmie Paranthoiene said:
“The next chapter of Melt turns the volume up on Queer joy, protest and pride. Melt is a love letter to our community, and everyone’s invited to the party.”
With everything from children’s discos to burlesque, radical theatre to rainbow river parades, Melt Festival 2025 is set to be a defining moment in Australia’s cultural calendar.
Full program and tickets available now at meltfestival.com.au
