Festival 2026
May 16-31
Festival Program
2026
May 16-17
We celebrate in Buninyong
Darling Hearts, This year we're opening our festival with a Cabaret Ball.
We've gathered Ballarat's finest and most fabulous dance groups
who will show us their favourite moves.
Come ready to get on the floor.
No skills required - just bring your enthusiasm, your two left feet
and your favourite friends.
Glitz, glamour, mischief and grit.
Grab your crew, don your dancing shoes and prepare for a night where
the wild and unexpected partners with old world charm.
Step into the spotlight and bring your sparkle… the night is calling.
Strap in for a night of unforgettable performances, cheeky charm, a touch of mischief
and a whole lot of attitude.
Tickets are limited — don’t miss out.
Join us. Dress up. Make it a night to remember.
📅 Date: May 16
📍 Venue: Buninyong Town Hall
🎟️ Tickets: Only $20 and will sell out!
Then, enjoy a lush Sunday afternoon in the countryside with us..
Tassels & Tummies: A Fat Burlesque is a bold, celebratory cabaret
that centres fat bodies as powerful, desirable, and artistically vital.
The show features a rotating line-up of local and interstate performers
working across burlesque, cabaret, and variety.
Each bringing their own style, politics, and joy to the stage.
More than a strip show, Tassels & Tummies is a reclaiming of space.
It challenges narrow beauty standards and the marginalisation of fat performers
within traditional cabaret and burlesque contexts,
offering audiences an experience that is joyful, unapologetic, and deeply embodied.
Expect high production values, strong audience connection,
and performances that range from sensual and playful
to defiant and emotionally resonant.
The show is inclusive, accessible, and community-focused,
designed to make both performers and audiences
feel seen, celebrated, and welcome.
May 28-31
We Have an incredible line-up of shows
at the Arts Academy, Ballarat
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The Gala is Back! May 28-31
Join us for the hottest event of the festival!
Our fabulous gala show - carefully crafted just for festival 26'
Featuring returning favourites and new surprises!
Step into a night of glitz, glamour, jaw-dropping talent and fabulous fun
featuring special guests and cabaret favourites,
tailored just for the 2026 Ballarat Cabaret Festival!
From spellbinding vocals to daring feats of acrobatics, mesmerizing acts of artistry
to soul-stirring magic, our dazzling gala is the festival highlight.
It will leave you breathless and wanting more.
📅 Dates: May 29-31
📍 Venue: Black Box Theatre, Arts Academy, Camp St
🎟️ Tickets will sell out!
Please Note: this show has a Mature Audience rating of 16+.
As it's a new show it is still under construction, but is likely to contain: audult themes,
coarse language, possible nudity, LGBTQIA+ themes
and other acts of adulting (or attempted adulting - we are all artists after all!)
Haze will be used throughout the performance.
Knock over your trash cans – sketch trio & FedUni grads,
Sugar Bits are spilling feminism all over Camp St.
Smeared with the socio-political grime of Abbie Chatfield and the idiocy of Aunty Donna, these triple-threats are overflowing with absurd sketches, razor-sharp songs
and characters validating the feminist experience.
Multi-award nominated (always the bridesmaids) and more stars than you can recycle,
it’s no wonder they’re the cult hit of Adelaide and Melbourne Festivals.
Your power trip is our FEMINIST TRASH!
★★★★ "As bitingly satirical as it is silly.'" Time Out Melbourne
★★★★½ "A masterclass in curated chaos'" Upside Adelaide
★★★★½ "The whole production runs on contagious joy.'" On the House
★★★★★ "An absolute force of nature.'" Binge Fringe
★★★★½ “Insightful and fresh takes on rhetoric that has inspired activists for decades” InDaily (SA)
★★★½ "A winning mix of the tight and the loose.'" Chortle (UK)
★★★★ "Full of cheek, good times and irresistible energy.'" The List (UK)
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Girlhood in the Bathroom is a new Australian musical set entirely in a club bathroom.
Following five twenty-something-year-old girls on New Year's Eve,
Girlhood in the Bathroom explores love, friendship, and the truths of growing up through dynamic scenes and original songs. The show explores a simple but revealing question: why do girls always go to the bathroom together?
Set in a space that is both intimate and public, the musical captures moments
of vulnerability and solidarity that unfold behind closed doors.
Written and performed by Ballarat Arts Academy graduates Imogen Brown, Sarah Eaton, Hannah Manderson, Amaya Pardillo and Alice Quick.
“Girlhood in the Bathroom is messy, hilarious, painfully real, and honestly one of the most relatable theatre experiences I've had in a long time.” Starre TV.
The Glitter Bug Club
Kids Club Cabaret Extravaganza
May 30, 12PM and 2.30pm
Black Box Theatre,
Arts Academy, Camp St
The Glitter Bug Club Kids Cabaret Extravaganza!
The tables are set. The audience is seated. The lights are on.
But where are the stars of the show?
The maître d’ and waiters of The Glitter Bug Club must save the day as the booked stars of the show have gone to the completely wrong venue…!
The show will go on and it’s up to them.
With wild costumes and slapped-on makeup, their unleashed talent creates
a wild and wacky show full of fun, laughter, dancing and a bit of kid karaoke.
Masquerading as divas, contortionists, Spanish dancers, mind readers
and good ol’ country singers, the staff hope that the kids don’t discover
that the real talent didn’t make it.
Join us for an evening of extraordinary singers sharing our favourite music.
When world-class singers come together, something special happens.
Experience exceptional musicians doing what we do best.
Sharing the songs we love, the stories that move us, and the kind of music
that only hits properly when it’s live and in the room with you.
Expect powerhouse vocals, electric chemistry, and a night built on pure love of the craft. This is music at its most honest — world-class talent, all in, for the joy of it.
A very special experience not to be missed.
Everyone’s favourite pansexual, time-travelling songbird returns with a cabaret
steeped in desire, decadence, and delicious disaster.
Adore Händel revisits centuries of passion - the fleeting glances, the grand gestures, and the glorious mistakes that make history blush.
Blending operatic splendour with pop seduction, they weave a glittering tapestry of love, lust, and lingering regret - all delivered with wicked wit
and a velvet voice made for sin.
'A glittering humorous show with a message which is stunningly performed' Glam Adelaide ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'This is such a fun show: clever, sophisticated, risqué and bursting with originality' Barefoot Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Formidable, fabulous and fearless' Lilithia Reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Best of Cabaret Winner Adelaide Fringe 2026
Best of Cabaret and Variety Perth Fringeworld 2026
Best in Cabaret Nominee Melbourne Fringe 2025
