RISING has unveiled its full 2026 program, with over 100 events and 376 artists descending on Melbourne from 27 May to 8 June.
RISING will scatter across theatres, town halls, cathedrals, ballrooms and civic squares, featuring seven world premieres and 11 Australian premieres. Among the headline acts are Brooklyn rap icon Lil’ Kim, Palestinian rapper Saint Levant, London art-rock outfit Dry Cleaning, English poet and musician Kae Tempest, Afrobeat torchbearer Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 and Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon.
The program traces what organisers describe as a path from cathedral to club, ballroom to basement, threading music, art, performance and dance through the heart of Naarm/Melbourne’s city centre and beyond.
RISING 2026
- Where: Various venues across Melbourne CBD and surrounds
- When: 27 May – 8 June
- Tickets: rising.melbourne
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
Day Tripper returns to Melbourne
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The festival-within-a-festival is back, colliding poetry, punk, roots reggae, avant-jazz and experimental pop across a sprawling single-day marathon. Kae Tempest leads the charge alongside visionary poet and musician Saul Williams, Chicago spiritual jazz pioneer Kahlil El’zabar, Jamaican roots legends The Congos, Christchurch’s beloved Flying Nun stalwarts The Bats, Copenhagen’s Elias B Rønnenfelt and Manhattan’s Chanel Beads.
Day Tripper has proved a phenomenal success and the 2026 edition looks set to raise the bar again.
Lil’ Kim celebrates two landmark records
Lil’ Kim arrives at RISING to celebrate Hard Core and The Notorious K.I.M. — two multiplatinum records that helped usher in a new millennium of rap. After leaving home in her teens, she started out freestyling before becoming the breakout star of Junior M.A.F.I.A., the New York crew formed by Notorious B.I.G. Her Festival Hall show promises a landmark celebration of hip hop legacy at one of Melbourne’s grandest stages.
Saint Levant brings ‘New Wave Arab’ to Melbourne
Jerusalem-born Saint Levant brings his breakthrough Arabic sounds to Melbourne Town Hall as part of his debut Australian tour. Marwan Abdelhamid started out rapping in sweaty basements before his single Very Few Friends propelled what he calls his “New Wave Arab” sound onto the international stage, from Coachella to the Paris Olympia. With three million Instagram followers and a massive TikTok presence, he’s one of the most talked-about young artists on the 2026 bill.
A world premiere Gil Scott-Heron tribute
In a world premiere presentation, Gil Scott-Heron by Brian Jackson & Yasiin Bey will honour the legacy of one of the most influential voices in modern music. Jackson, who co-created much of Scott-Heron’s most celebrated work, joins forces with Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) for what shapes as one of RISING’s most unmissable one-off music events.
Sounds in sacred and unexpected spaces
Elsewhere in the music program, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 bring the formidable legacy of Fela Kuti to Hamer Hall on the younger Kuti’s first trip to Australia. Toronto’s TR/ST will deliver his mammoth, laser-fed live show, while at Melbourne Town Hall, Cate Le Bon will weave analog textures, filtered vocals and sculptural arrangements, and UK producer Daniel Avery will transform the grand hall into a giant rave room.
Inside St Paul’s Cathedral, Pulitzer Prize-winning Diné composer Raven Chacon presents Voiceless Mass, a searing ensemble work for organ, flute, clarinet, percussion, strings and electronics that turns the cathedral into a site of reckoning. The work reflects on the lands beneath gathering spaces and the histories that have silenced Indigenous voices. It’s free to attend with registration.
North Carolina alt-country outfit Wednesday take to Max Watt’s with their slacker poetics and gnarly riffs, while Dry Cleaning bring Florence Shaw’s talk-sung dispatches to The Forum. The Australian Dance Biennial also launches as a new pillar of the festival, headlined by The Royal Family Dance Crew’s arena-scale takeover of Hamer Hall and a free public dance event at Fed Square.
RISING 2026 runs 27 May to 8 June across Melbourne. For more information, head here.
Beat is a proud media partner of RISING.
