With over 400 shows, performances, activations and events throughout September, the annual Sydney Fringe Festival is gearing up for its most successful year since the event was founded in 2010.
Sydney Festival adds colour and vibrancy to January – the Monday of each year – and Vivid Sydney dominates the city in the dead of winter. But spring is the Sydney Fringe’s domain.
Stacks of left-field and experimental art will take over four general precincts across Sydney, turning the city into a canvas for some of the world’s foremost creatives. Each is tasked with producing daring, provocative and challenging shows designed to inspire, stimulate, and hopefully sow the seeds of creativity for guests yearning for something different. In line with Fringe festivals the world over, the Sydney Fringe Festival is all about thinking outside of the box, sitting at the crossroads of art and entertainment.
The event has also made September an incredible time to visit Sydney. Not only is there an abundance of things to do around town, but Sydneysiders start popping their heads out of hibernation, looking for a good time. The city is alive, and brilliant, during Sydney Fringe Festival.
We at Sydney Travel Guide want to make sure you’re not missing out on the best beats at the Sydney Fringe Festival for 2024. Consider this your handy curated guide on the best Sydney Fringe events. And you’ll want to plan far in advance – the most popular events sell out fast. No one wants FOMO, especially when they’re visiting for a holiday.
The Sydney Fringe Festival program can be overwhelming, so we’ve split our top picks across the four precincts: central, eastern, inner west, and greater Sydney. We encourage you to check them all out, particularly the events in Western Sydney with world-class venues like Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre and Hurstville Entertainment Centre.
The Best Sydney Fringe Festival Events
Central Precinct
1. Feed Your Fire
Where: Machine Hall; 183 Clarence St, Sydney NSW 2000
When: Friday, September 20
Tickets: $149
Shaped into one of Sydney’s newest and most impressive event spaces, Machine Hall, Feed Your Fire will be Sydney Fringe’s signature dining event. Set for one-night-only, a single communal table will be buzzing with lively conversation from leading thinkers, tastemakers, policy brains and urban innovators. A $149 ticket will secure you a spot as part of this ragtag group, where deep conversations, meaty topics and soulful food are all tied together to enrich the experience.
“No boring festival panels here,” reads the official description. The idea is that you’ll walk away with a night of inspiring talks behind you, lifted by a high level of curation so you’ve got a buffet for both the mind and the palate.
Social enterprise Plate it Forward has been tapped to take care of the food, while Ethic Centre’s philosophers take care of the discussion topics to ensure chatter (of substance) continues well into the night.
2. In the Key of G
Where: George Place Foyer; 345-363 George St, Sydney NSW 2000
When: Final performance on Wednesday, September 25
Tickets: Free
Sydney Fringe Festival has a great deal of free events as well, so you don’t necessarily need a ticket to enjoy everything the experimental art festival has to offer.
As one of the signature free events, Sydney Fringe will bring back In the Key of G, which is one for fans of deeply cerebral piano music. Throughout September, four very different composers have crafted their own pieces to bring to life on two pianos. Attendees will then learn the music and help create the final performance, set for Wednesday, September 25, culminating in one big 40-minute piano piece – a progressive patchwork of ideas built up through September.
Either head along for the public rehearsals or dress up and head along to the final performance. Either way, this is shaping up to be an easy highlight of Fringe and one of the more interesting things to do in Sydney in September.
3. Independence Days
Where: Machine Hall; 183 Clarence St, Sydney NSW 2000
When: September 18-26
Tickets: Free
Are you a budding creative yourself? Or are you even just looking to introduce more creative thinking into your everyday lifestyle. Whatever the case, inspiration sparks when two great minds come together and have a genuine, soulful conversation about authenticity, integrity, and creativity – three essential ingredients for any creator.
Think of Independence Days as one of several main hubs for Sydney Fringe Festival this year. Organisers have taken over Machine Hall’s Clarence Vault with a loosely defined mixer that’ll be buzzing with creative minds, artists and people who just want a nice new spot to sit and drink in September. It’s speed dating for creatives.
Clarence Vault will be reimainged as a hidden speakeasy between September 18 and 26. For three hours each day, guests will be encouraged to peer into the “heart and soul of independent creativity” where every discussion dips into what it means to be an independent artist in 2024. As with all festival hubs, the structure is there for ideas to flourish, collaborations to be born, and inspiration to rise.
4. Friday Ritual
Where: International Tower 3, Barangaroo & Waterman’s Cove
When: September 13, 20, 27
Tickets: Free
Looking for a way to unwind in Barangaroo that doesn’t involve pricey cocktails and multi-course dinners? Sydney Fringe Festival has just the right idea with Friday Ritual, a weekly creative love-in where artist Matthew Aberline will create simple, scalable structures designed to dance in the wind and signify the start of the weekend.
Matthew will work with the Beautiful and Useful Studio to craft these structures in the foyer of International Tower 3 in Barangaroo. Members of the public are invited to attend and contribute to the creative process (or just observe) before these pieces are paraded through the precinct and set up at Waterman’s Cove and an awaiting choir. The ritual will begin at 5:45pm with dancing art and music, ripping away the hustle and bustle of the office-laden precinct and take us from business to pleasure.
Eastern Precinct
5. Hope by Soweto Gospel Choir
Where: Speigeltent Festival Garden, Entertainment Quarter
When: September 3-25
Tickets: $69 per person
With three Grammy Awards behind them, the Soweto Gospel Choir channels the long history and visceral power of traditional African gospel music in their new show, Hope. For Sydney Fringe Festival, the inspiring collective of singers, cobbled from the many churches in and around Soweto, will turn the Entertainment Quarter’s Spiegeltent Festival Garden into a powerful platform for South African freedom songs.
Not only that, but the large choir will also visit the protest music of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as works by legendary artists like James Brown, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, and Aretha Franklin.
While Sydney Fringe Festival ebbs and flows with art from around the world, you’ll be able to connect deeply with the uplifting, spiritual sounds one of the world’s most anticipated gospel choirs. Unexpected? Sure. Essential? You bet.
6. Mickey’s Jazz Club
Where: The Emerald Room; Level 1/235 Victoria St, Darlinghurst NSW 2010
When: September 5, 6, 7
Tickets: From $35 per person
Old world glamour reigns supreme at The Emerald Room, one of the newest venues in Darlinghurst and a bridge between Sydney’s past, present and future. On paper, it’s a late-night cabaret club and restaurant, but it’s also something Sydney has needed for quite a long time to put it on the same radar as destinations like New York City and London.
Sound like the type of venue that Sydney Fringe Festival would absolutely eat up? Spot on. In fact, Sydney Fringe will use The Emerald Room for five different conceptual events throughout September. Our favourite? It’s looking like Mickey’s Jazz Club is shaping up to be a highlight of this year’s event.
Eat your heart out New York. This will be a swinging jazz club helmed by a seven-piece outfit that includes musicians who have worked across Lola’s Piano Bar, Universal Studios, and even Aussie classic Muriel’s Wedding. And to add a bit of spice to it, the theme will be animated melodies. Think Disney and Mickey Mouse (hence the name). It’s $35 if you just want to see the 2.5-hour show, but there will be add-ons available from VIP seats and cabaret tables, to dinner and Champagne packages.
7. The Birth & Death of Stars
Where: Bondi Pavilion Theatre; Queen Elizabeth Dr, Bondi Beach NSW 2026
When: September 6, 7
Tickets: $49
Local world music favourites MZAZA, a diverse musical collection of musicians and songwriters, will take over Bondi Pavilion for two epic nights. Blending music and theatre is nothing new, but Sydney Fringe Festival is built on high-concept, themed events like this. The Birth & Death of Stars is themed by history’s greatest philosophers and astronomers, drawing on various forms of expression such as music (of course) and animation.
Directed by Benjamin Knapton with Finnish animator Laura Matikainen and writer Pailine Maudy, the show is one of just a few playing in Bondi, as the majority of Sydney Fringe Festival goes down in and around the CBD. It’s a great, affordable way to catch a unique show after a day on those iconic golden grains.
Inner West Precinct
8. Triptych
Where: The New Theatre; 542 King St, Newtown NSW 2042
When: September 17-21
Tickets: $54
Triptych is a dazzling new dance production curated as part of the Touring Hub, a collection of hand-picked indie productions that focuses on both rising stars and legends of the scene. For this stylish performance, choreographer-director Lewis Major will be working with his mentor, industry veteran Russell Maliphant OBE, on three different pieces lifted by movement, sound and light. Given Maliphant is “Britain’s leading modern dance creator,” Triptych should easily be one of the year’s best productions for fans of high-concept dance, with Major leading a group of talent through an investigation of “various poetic possibilities, universal rhythms and cycles.”
9. An Ambivalent Woman of 37
Where: Flight Path Theatre; 9b/142 Addison Rd, Marrickville NSW 2204
When: September 10-14
Tickets: $48
Performance artist Emma Sandall has built a show around one very crucial life decision: “should I have a child?”
That question will be explored with a side of dark humour, promising to serve an “emotional and intellectual gut punch” as she draws on Sheila Heti’s book Motherhood. Sandall has worked with composter Elena Kats Chernin AO and pianist Yanghee Kim for An Ambivalent Woman of 37, drawing on animation, music and movement to tell this story. The official description also promises a bit of Monty Python-esque humour and inspiration taken from the golden era of silent film, presenting a complex challenge to traditional ideas of “female fulfilment and sacrifice and who gets to define it.”
Greater Sydney Precinct
10. Big Nose Big Dreams
Where: Riverside Theatres; Corner Market & Church Street, Parramatta NSW 2150
When: Sunday, September 22
Tickets: $29
Set in the gorgeous Riverside Theatres of Parramatta, Big Nose Big Dreams is a one-hour, one-man comedy (and one-night) show from Egyptian-Australian writer Daniel Mehareb, conceived as a coming-of-age tale about growing up amongst the Middle-Eastern community of south west Sydney. Mehareb probes the themes of “not fitting in” or “living between worlds,” drawing on his own experience and perspectives to tell “humanising stories of community for community.”
With the Riverside Theatres one of the major focal points of Sydney Fringe Festival each year, this should be a great way for visitors to Sydney to get out and explore our “second CBD”. Plus, you can take a stroll through the many flavours of Church Street before or after the show.
11. Feast: Chopsticks or Fork?
Where: Hurstville Entertainment Centre; 16 Macmahon Street, Hurstville NSW 2220
When: Thursday, September 19
Tickets: $59
Feast: Chopsticks or Fork marries discussions about prawn toast and lemon chicken with contributions from five of Australia’s “biggest Chinese restaurant fans.” Talents like Benjamin Law, Michael Hing, Happy Feraren, Frida Deguise, and Lin Jie Kong will come together with host, writer and comedian Jennifer Wong to bring her latest book, Chopsticks or Fork?, to life with lively, entertaining discussion about road trips, food, and the uniqueness of country town Chinese restaurants in Australia.
12. Skank Sinatra
Where: Riverside Theatres; Corner Market & Church Street, Parramatta NSW 2150
When: September, 19-20
Tickets: $29
With numerous five-star reviews behind it, Jens Radda’s newest cabaret show is primed to be one of the highlights of the entire Sydney Fringe Festival program. The globe-trotting show will reinvent Frank Sinatra’s numerous classics, twisted by a whirlwind journey that’ll take audiences from South Africa to Berlin, all the way down to Australia.
Fresh from winning Best Cabaret at Adelaide Fringe earlier this year, Skank Sinatra is an eclectic blend of powerful vocals and humour, glued together by Radda’s incomporable personality and mesmerising stage presence. She’s been called the “cabaret Queen of Australia” after all.
For the full Sydney Fringe Festival program head to the event’s official website.
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