Now or Never is a portal to imagined futures, backdropped by sonic dreaming, immersive experimentation and prophetic enquiry.
Past, present and future collide at this year’s Now or Never. It’s fitting for a festival that exists to explore the intersection of art, ideas, sound and technology.
As we blast at lightning speed into a technological present of once-unimaginable technological developments, Now or Never’s centring of art is more important than ever, underpinned by 2025’s potent program.
What is it, then, that we’ve seen? This August, Now or Never is taking us on a journey to find out.
Now or Never 2025
- When: 21-31 August
- Where: various venues across Melbourne
- Find out more info here
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
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For 11 days of music, art and performance from 21 to 31 August, Now or Never is taking hold of Naarm. That is – the Naarm of now, the city of the future and the stories of the past. The festival will see historical landmarks dressed up as artworks and quiet sanctuaries transformed into roaring raves. This isn’t any ordinary festival. Expect the unexpected and lean into the mystique. When you do, the answers in the art will follow you.
Featuring music, installations, performance, after-hours playgrounds, films, presentations, discussions and more, Now or Never will be snaking its way through the veins of the city and its most iconic locations.
The State Library, Science Gallery, Melbourne Town Hall, Royal Exhibition Building, ACMI, The Capitol, Arts House, The Wheeler Centre, Melbourne Recital Centre, Fed Square’s The Edge, Melbourne Museum and ArtPlay will all play host to the festival. The weather won’t be dampening any of the fun, either, with outdoor venues like Evan Walker Bridge, Fed Square’s Big Screen and Melbourne Town Hall Forecourt also taking part.
The artwork is the arena
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There are no limits as to what spaces will be imagined as art at this year’s rendition of the festival. Royal Exhibition Building is showcasing that idea in full form by swapping out its ornamental ceiling for a sanctuary of inflatable pink with MATRIA, an art installation created by Barcelona-based collective Penique Production.
In a collision of texture and sound, MATRIA will host a string of live music performances – like saxophonist-composer Alex Zhang Hungtai and Berlin-based rRoxymore. The all-consuming art piece will also be the grounds of a concoction of movement, with dancer and choreographer Amber McCartney teaming up with Sicilian producer DJ Shapednoise for a night of bodily sensations.
Local breathwork movement The Breath Haus will also be taking on the artwork as their stage for a visceral exploration of breathing and mindfulness. As you breathe, so too does MATRIA.
Transforming historic institutions into kaleidoscopic dance floors
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The State Library and Science Gallery are both opening their doors to punters for special after-hours experiences. While Science Gallery is hosting a club night of experimental music and immersive art, the State Library will come alive with a slew of DJs under the Dome for Library Up Late.
Melbourne Town Hall will light up as a gathering place of dance-hungry night owls with a collection of international music-makers transforming the historic building into a kaleidoscope of sound. Across four nights of the Now or Never program, favourites like CORIN, DJ Python, Young Marco and Marie Davidson will be joining lineups of sonic exploration.
While Melbourne Recital Centre may be one of the more traditional music venues you’ll find hosting performances at the festival, rest assured that what will be unfolding inside – as usual – is far from typical. The majesty of its halls will see American musician Laurel Halo join forces with cellist Leila Bordreuil, as well as electronic music stalwart Mortiz von Oswald presenting his acclaimed work, Silencio.
The breadth of art on display across the festival will cascade high above your wildest imaginings, and there’ll be a plethora of installations that will do so for free. Melbourne Town Hall will host Alcove LTD in the forecourt – a portal of light, sound and image from Encor Studio – and Einder in its hall – an immersive experience by Boris Acket that replicates a thunderstorm.
The exterior of the State Library will be the stage for DELIRI – a free installation by Barcelona-based artistic duo Hamill Industries – while Evan Walker Bridge will be transformed into a vessel of storytelling through light projection and Bidjara language for Burdi Burdi. Melbourne Recital Centre’s free Listening Acts installation by Chamber Made asks observes to explore the simple act of listening through a portal of technology.
Ideas that stretch time and space
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Foodies are in for a treat with acclaimed cookbook author Julia Busuttil Nishimura hosting a feast under the sky of Einder, converging food and sound in an explosion of the senses. Cinephiles will also be able to get in on the fun with screenings of the hypnotic PARA.CINE and the multi-sensory ASSEMBLY at ACMI. The groundbreaking First Nations film Crown and Country will also grace the screen at The Capitol.
On the theatrical side, Crisis Actor at Arts House reinterprets immersive theatre through a whole new lens. Queer PowerPoint is also out to disrupt norms with the simplest of tools at our disposal: Microsoft’s PowerPoint.
Now or Never explores big ideas and expansive imaginings by using art as a vessel. This mammoth undertaking is extended with a collection of discussions led by some of the world’s brightest minds. Tim Flannery will present an optimistic perspective on a future underlined by climate catastrophe, while neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston will discuss the possibility of immortality. Safe to say, no subject is off limits.
Elsewhere on the program, cultural critic and music journalist Liz Pelly asks us to question the role of algorithms in art, and Associate Professor Jessica Russ-Smith and Professor Michelle D. Lazarus will discuss the ongoing importance of First Nations knowledge systems in a world led by AI.
Now or Never isn’t just about paying witness to the art that is on display – it’s about feeling it. Whether that be through immersing yourself through body and breath, discussing the future’s precarity and possibility or moving to a kaleidoscope of sonic experimentations, an event at Now or Never is an all-consuming exploration, no matter what you’re into.
For more information and the full Now or Never program, head here.
Beat is a proud media partner of Now or Never.
