Midsumma Festival

About

Midsumma is Australia’s premier queer arts and cultural organisation, bringing together a diverse mix of LGBTQIA+ artists, performers, communities and audiences.

Our primary event, Midsumma Festival, usually runs over 23 days in Melbourne’s summer (January/February) each year with an explosion of queer events that centre around hidden and mainstream queer culture, involving local, interstate, and international artists.

In 2025, Midsumma Festival will run from Sunday 19 January to Sunday 9 February.

All 2025 significant events are:

Sunday 19 January 2025: Midsumma Carnival
Sunday 2 February 2025: Midsumma Pride March
Date TBA by Victorian Government: Victoria’s Pride Street Party

Midsumma is also involved all year round in nurturing artists and creating opportunities for their professional development, with particular emphasis on assisting those in our communities who suffer discrimination or disadvantage.

The Midsumma Festival program comprises a curated Midsumma Presents line-up plus the community-driven Open-access stream to share with you the lived experiences of those voices at the margins, the expression of queer history, and the celebration of new ideas and stories that come to life through world-class art and performance.

Our festival program comprises diverse art forms and genres, including visual arts, live music, theatre, spoken word, cabaret, film, parties, sports, social events, and public forums. In 2024, we featured 200+ events, with involvement by over 500 culture-makers in over 153 different venues across Melbourne and wider Victoria, to audiences averaging 281,500 attendees over the past five years.

Our Leadership Position

Since 1988, we have evolved with our communities and repositioned ourselves as a globally relevant cultural influencer and thought leader while keeping learning and diversity at our heart. We have experienced rapid growth in audiences, breadth and scope of artist and community engagement, and depth of artistic partnerships and new work developed. We have matured to become one of Australia’s most significant queer arts organisations, supporting generations of LGBTQIA+ cultural voices, discovering artists and starting conversations that shape queer art and culture forever.

Our commitment to the arts extends beyond our annual three-week festival and celebrates our roots. We work tirelessly throughout the year to provide artists, social changers, and culture makers with the necessary support and tools to create, present, and promote their work. One of our flagship programs, Midsumma Pathways, stands as a testament to this commitment, providing a queer context for d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse LGBTQIA+ emerging artists to develop their artistic practices.

Elevating Creative Visibility

Midsumma attracts broad attendance across broad age ranges and demographics, representing inclusion and diversity in all its forms. For this reason, we are ideally placed to make the many diverse queer communities in Victoria more visible and to provide a platform for creative voices and stories that are often not heard or seen otherwise in the broader community.

Midsumma is a festival that intrinsically creates safe and inclusive places for communities, with diversity at its core.  We know that when our communities feel safe and supported, they can build stronger connections within their groups and with others they interact with.

Midsumma is a non-profit organisation. By making a donation to Midsumma, you’re helping to support over 5000 culture makers, producers, artists, and community members passionate about queer cultural experiences who need to tell and hear these stories and share these safe spaces.

Your support counts. If you are in a position to support us, please donate what you can and help us keep our major events free for everyone in our communities.

We would love your help bridging the shortfalls in our finances, enabling us to meet the delivery costs and make each festival the best Midsumma Festival we can make.

DONATE TO MIDSUMMA HERE

Midsumma is a non-profit organisation staffed by a small team of committed professionals, governed by a voluntary Board of Management, and supported by hundreds of generous and passionate volunteers yearly.

Want to know more? Get in touch. We would love to share our story with you!

We are a part of MIDSUMMA FESTIVAL INC, who are registered as a: Not-for-profit.

More details

LGBTIQ Owned and Operated: Yes
Qualifications: MIDSUMMA PATHWAYS

Midsumma Pathways is a nine-month mentorship and community engagement program for LGBTIQA+ people with disabilities in the creative industries across Australia. The program supports participants in developing meaningful connections and building the skills, knowledge, and confidence needed to become innovative community leaders. Through capacity-building skills workshops, participants learn and understand disability rights and self-advocacy and how to use these skills in their personal and professional lives to achieve their goals. This program also develops national social and professional networks for participants through regular cohort meetings and tailored one-to-one mentorships with industry professionals.
Program participants can work in any art form, and experienced program staff provide individualised support for access needs.
Service Delivery Format: