The Geelong Folk Music Club is bringing a folk festival back to the city after a three-decade absence, and the lineup already looks stacked.
Geelong Folk Festival 2026 marks a proper revival for the region’s live folk scene, with the one-day event landing at the Geelong West Town Hall on 6 September. The club — the same organisation that originally founded the internationally acclaimed Port Fairy Folk Festival back in 1977 — has assembled a bill spanning Celtic traditions, acoustic blues, Scots song and vocal harmony.
Headlining the first announcement are award-winning neo-Celtic trio Apolline, whose genre-bending mix of fiddle, cello and bass has earned them a Youth Folk Artist of the Year nomination at the Australian Folk Music Awards. They’re joined by Tasmanian harmony outfit Velvet Sledgehammer, Glasgow-born traditional Scots singer Fiona Ross, and Nick Charles, widely regarded as one of the country’s finest acoustic roots and blues guitarists with nearly two decades of albums and an International Blues Challenge win under his belt.
Geelong Folk Festival 2026
- Where: The Geelong West Town Hall, 153 Pakington Street, Geelong West, Wadawurrung Country
- When: 6 September, all day till late
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The festival is backed by a City of Greater Geelong Community Grant, cementing it as a grassroots community affair rather than a corporate venture. The Geelong Folk Music Club has been a staple of the local music landscape for decades, running regular club nights, sessions and open mic events out of various venues across the region.
For folk devotees in the greater Geelong area, this one fills a gap that’s been empty for a long time. A full day of traditional and contemporary acoustic music, housed in one of the neighbourhood’s most characterful venues, with room to grow in the years ahead.
For more information, head here.
