RESET, the free sustainability festival, is back at Fed Square this spring with planting, swaps, workshops, a book rave and outdoor cinema running into October.
A daytime rave for bookworms is one small slice of RESET, Fed Square’s free sustainability festival, returning this spring.
The RESET season opens on 5 September with the Planting Party, run with Creative Climate, taking over the Skyline Car Park and Test Garden for talks, workshops, a plant market and live music.
Hands-on sessions cover propagation, weaving, botanical drawing and habitat building, alongside conversations on Caring for Country, language, regenerative design and the Birrarung as a living entity. The day follows a month of volunteers planting thousands of natives across 13 sites around Victoria.
RESET at Fed Square
- Planting Party: 5 September, Skyline Car Park and Test Garden
- Zero Waste Festival: 12 September
- Book Doof: 13 September, The Atrium
- World Cleanup Day clean-up: 18 September, along the Birrarung
- Junk journaling workshop: 19 September
- Remake and Repair sewing sessions: 20 September
- The Big Toy Swap: 23 September
- Paper Planet by Polyglot Theatre: 28 September to 2 October, The Edge
- Outdoor cinema: Flipper on 30 September, Free Willy on 1 October, Fly Away Home on 2 October
- Confluence 2026 waterways forum: 17 October
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
The Zero Waste Festival
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The Zero Waste Festival arrives on 12 September with repair and mending stations, bike fixes, clothes, book and fabric swaps, sustainable cooking, market stalls and the first ReWear Runway, a parade of garments rebuilt from reclaimed and repurposed fabric. On 13 September, Book Doof turns the Atrium into a daytime rave for readers, who settle in with a free coffee and a book while a DJ plays vinyl from the balcony.
School holiday fun
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The school holidays bring a run of free family activities from 19 September to 4 October, including a precinct-wide nature discovery trail. Polyglot Theatre’s Paper Planet, a forest of towering cardboard trees, returns to The Edge from 28 September to 2 October, 15 years after it first premiered at Fed Square. Families build creatures, costumes and whole environments out of paper and tape in a child-led experience that has since toured internationally.
Free afternoon films
Free afternoon films screen on the Big Screen across the holidays, with the nature adventures Flipper on 30 September, Free Willy on 1 October and Fly Away Home on 2 October. Other highlights include junk journaling on 19 September, Remake and Repair sewing sessions on 20 September, the Big Toy Swap on 23 September and a World Cleanup Day clean-up of the Birrarung with the Yarra Riverkeeper Association on 18 September.
RESET closes on 17 October with Confluence 2026, a community waterways forum run with the Yarra Riverkeeper Association as part of Birrarung Riverfest, where advocates, researchers, volunteers and Traditional Owners map out the future of Melbourne’s rivers, creeks and wetlands.
For more information, head here.
