Sydney Festival 2026, Through my Favourite Lens

Sydney Festival ran from 8 to 25 January 2026, and this year I finally made it along for the first time! (I know, where have I been all this time?)

This year, I went as an audience member, a storyteller, and also, for the first time, as a patron.
Sydney Festival is beautiful example of the intersection between my two philanthropic interest areas: women and girls, and the arts.

The program was full of female led, female created and female focused works. And I explored this season through that lens.

As a breastfeeding mum, with a four year old, it’s not always easy getting out to events - so I attended what I could and supported other works from the sidelines, by sharing about them, and of course by stepping on board as a patron this year.

My top picks

Mama Does Derby

Mama Does Derby is the kind of show that reminds you why live performance is still magic. It is high energy, funny, and deeply human, with that rare mix of warmth and bite. It follows a single mum and her teenage daughter as they find their people through roller derby, and it does not reduce motherhood to a slogan.

What I loved most is that it honours women as complicated, driven, messy, resilient, and still worthy of softness. It is not trying to make anyone look perfect. It is trying to make them real, and it succeeds.

Bad Hand

Bad Hand, a cabaret by Natalie Abbott, is a completely different emotional texture, and it hit me right in the chest. It is personal, sharp, and unexpectedly funny in places, which is often the truth of grief when you are living inside it. It is a story about loss, love, and the strange work of getting yourself back.

A few more from the program that stayed with me

Beyond what I managed to see, there were works in the program that made me pause, because they were ambitious, specific, and unapologetic.

Lacrima, by Caroline Guiela Nguyen, explores the global labour behind a royal wedding dress across countries and languages, and asks you to look directly at what glamour often hides.

WansolMoana Lunar Assembly, led by Latai Taumoepeau, offers a nighttime ocean ritual for women and children, staged at places like McIver’s Ladies Baths. It’s the kind of event that feels uniquely Sydney, and uniquely female, in the best sense.

Why it mattered

For me, Sydney Festival this year was a reminder that culture is not background noise. As the city was reeling from the senseless violence in Bondi only weeks before the opening, the festival continued to serve an important purpose: to share, to heal, to entertain.

Art is something we choose, fund, attend, and pass on. As a patron, as an audience member, and as a content creator, I care about championing women who make brave work, and I am committed to making it easier for more people to find them.

If you watched any shows this year, tell me what you saw. And if you are looking at the next festival or theatre program already, tell me what’s on your list!