RISING festival is igniting Melbourne in June, with 105 events ranging from Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def) and ONEFOUR to sprawling CBD parties, mammoth art installations and iconic venue takeovers.
RISING festival is a beloved annual explosion of creativity across Melbourne and its 2024 program is a feat of epic art, stunning parties and remarkable variety.
This year’s RISING festival fluidly mixes legendary artists like Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def) with viral sensations like ONEFOUR, and monumental free art events at iconic locations with underground club nights and redefined raves. There’ll be rock’n’roll stories, acclaimed theatrical debuts, boundary-pushing film events and a sprawling day party around the CBD.
Of course, RISING festival will also feature the most awe-inspiring venues. It will take you through the labyrinthian tunnels beneath the CBD, transform St Paul’s Cathedral and Melbourne Town Hall into heaving dancefloors, Fed Square into a vibrant First Peoples forum, State Library Victoria into a chic gallery club…there’s even an eight-hour nocturnal journey through the subterranean levels of Arts Centre Melbourne.
It’s one of our favourite times of the year, so read on for the exceptional full program.
RISING festival: Melbourne’s 2024 program
- Melbourne’s eclectic art, music and performance festival will feature 105 events and more than 480 artists
- RISING festival will take place in iconic and underground venues across the city, from June 1—16, 2024
- The music program is headlined by Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def), ONEFOUR, Fever Ray, Dirty Three, Yves Tumor, Sky Ferreira, Tirzah and many more
- Tickets on sale now. Subscribe to RISING festival for news here
- Book tickets to three or more eligible events in one transaction via the RISING festival website and automatically get 15% off the standard ticket price
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
Epic arts installation at RISING festival
The Blak Infinite
- Curated by Kimberley Moulton (Yorta Yorta) and Kate ten Buuren (Taungurung)
- Sat 1 June — 16 June
- Federation Square
- Find out more here
Fed Square has become one of Melbourne’s most eclectic cultural spaces this year and RISING festival will transform it into a vibrant forum of First Peoples’ art, politics, and cosmic connections with The Blak Infinite — an expansive free exhibition and public program at the heart of the festival.
EMBASSY
- Richard Bell (Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang)
- Fed Square
- Every Saturday
- Info here
The installation EMBASSY – inspired by the Aboriginal Tent Embassy pitched at Parliament House in 1972 – will feature politically-driven daily film screenings and talks every Saturday during RISING festival.
Sky Country
- Tony Albert (Girramay/Yidinyji/Kuku Yalanji)
- Fed Square
- Every night
Immersive nighttime projections share stories of Sky Country and the cosmos, lit up each evening in the square, transporting you into celestial knowledge. The big screen at Fed Square will also feature speculative fiction from First Peoples writer Ellen Van Neerven and collages from Wadawurrung artist Kait James.
The Rivers Sing
- Deborah Cheetham AO, Byron Scullin and Thomas Supple
- Every evening at dusk
- Along the Birrarung
Monumental sound work The Rivers Sing blends field recordings with human voices, echoing waterway singing traditions. It will take place along the Birrarung every evening at dusk, one of the highlights of the 2024 RISING festival.
Pay the Rent
- Richard Bell (Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman, and Gurang Gurang)
- Every day
- State Library Victoria
Pay the Rent is a digital sign with rapidly accumulating numbers, zooming upwards in red digits, representing the calculated debt owed to First Nations people by the Australian Government since Federation in 1901. It’s shown at art galleries around the world and now will span the facade of State Library Victoria.
RISING festival’s incredible music lineup
- Dirty Three
- Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def)
- ONEFOUR
- Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer of The Knife)
- Jlin
- Memorials – Verity Susman (Electrelane) and Matthew Simms (WIRE)
- Bar Italia
- Richard Youngs
- Asha Puthli
- HTRK
- Moktar
- Evian Christ
- Arthur Verocai with a 30-piece orchestra
- Sky Ferreira
- Yves Tumor
- Tirzah
- Blonde Redhead
- Snoh Aalegra
- Jeremy Deller
- Man on Man – Roddy Bottum (Faith No More, Imperial) and Joey Holman
- CHRISTEENE
- Tinariwen
- Aisha Mirza
- DJ Bae Bae
- Tinka
- Aquenta
- MzRizk
- DJ Gavin Campbell
- Rara Zulu
- Voices of Halo
- Crew-X
- House of Diesel
- Hieroglyphic Being AKA Jamal Moss
- Robin Fox
- SHOUSE
Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def)
- PICA + Melbourne Town Hall
- Hip hop
- Sun 9 June
- Tickets here
Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def) released acclaimed album The Ecstatic in 2009 before his hiatus. In his first of two RISING festival shows, he’ll be performing the masterpiece live at PICA. He’ll then perform at RISING’s festival-within-a-festival, Day Tripper.
Day Tripper
- Yasiin Bey’s tribute to MF Doom, Richard Youngs, Asha Puthli, Bar Italia, JLIN Memorials, HTRK and more
- Melbourne Town Hall, The Capitol, Max Watt’s
- King’s Birthday long weekend
- Sat 8 June
- 8 hours
- Tickets here
A day party takeover of music, performance, art and film encompassing multiple rooms within the grand old Melbourne Town Hall, the glorious Capitol Theatre cinema and basement club Max Watt’s, all under a single ticket thanks to RISING festival. Expect contemporary dance, brass bands, video works, sound works and a line-up that traverses post-punk, acid house, minimal techno, ambient, hip hop and disco.
24 HOUR ROCK SHOW
- Sat 8 June — 9 June
- The Capitol – RMIT
- Get tickets here
Saddle up for a 24-hour marathon of music documentaries that cling to their subjects tight, like stale jeans. In 2015, British artist Jeremy Deller selected 24 consecutive hours’ worth of music documentaries in Finland. Obscure gems screened alongside cult classics about the Rolling Stones, Björk and David Bowie, as well as films that went ankle deep into iconic festivals like Wattstax and Glastonbury. These were missives from the moment made by directors unafraid to do things like follow Johnny Cash to death row or let the camera linger on members of the Hell’s Angels having a bad trip at Altamont. A music-lover’s paradise for RISING festival.
Moktar: Town Hall Takeover
- Melbourne Town Hall
- 8pm til late
- King’s Birthday long weekend
- Arabic electronica
- Tickets here
Moktar blends club and techno with traditional Arabic instrumentation, offering a unique sound that pays homage to his Egyptian-Australian heritage. His Melbourne Town Hall performance is an invitation to explore the vibrant intersections of culture and music.
He’s like a sonic embroiderer who weaves worlds of resistance and revelry from across the globe. His sets can send you travelling from folktronica and electro to Ugandan rap, Takht, techno and house without letting the energy slip. Go deep into the details. Get lost in the threads at RISING festival.
Fever Ray
- Sun 9 June — 10 June
- Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
- Avant-garde electronic
- Tickets here
Fever Ray, the solo project of Sweden’s Karin Dreijer of The Knife, will transform Hamer Hall with their hauntingly beautiful and avant-garde electronic music. Pitch-shifted vocals, skate knotted grooves and glacial mountains of synth. It’s an icebox with fun-house mirror walls.
Due to demand, a second Fever Ray show has been announced on Sunday June 9.
ONEFOUR
- Sat 8 June
- Festival Hall
- Drill
- Tickets here
Mount Druitt’s ONEFOUR are five Samoan-Australians who started making drill rap in a studio behind a fridge supply store. Now they’re one of Australia’s most successful hip-hop acts and making their Melbourne debut for RISING, with raw stories of crime, poverty and social dislocation.
Evian Christ
- Max Watt’s
- Sunday June 9
- Trance
UK producer Evian Christ brings banging trance anthems and a massive AV show exclusively to RISING. His debut album Revanchrist takes the mountain-sized arpeggios, the whispering pleas and the sugar-fed drops—then deconstructs them.
Dirty Three
- Hamer Hall
- June 14 and 15
- Rock, jazz and folk
- Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
- Tickets here
Closing out the festival, Melbourne icons Dirty Three make their long-awaited return, offering transcendent live performances that melds rock, jazz, and folk into captivating instrumentals.
Arthur Verocai
- Melbourne Recital Centre
- Tropicalia, jazz, funk, soul, samba and bossa nova
Brazilian deep-groove arranger Arthur Verocai’s 1972 debut album is a masterpiece that blends ‘60s Tropicalia with lush jazz, funk, soul, samba and bossa nova. The 78-year-old maestro is making his way to RISING to mobilise the Rio rhythm with a 30-piece orchestra at Melbourne Recital Centre.
Sky Ferreira
- The Forum
- Pop
- Tue 4 June
- Tickets here
US pop star Sky Ferreira is jetting her way to RISING—and Australia for the first time since 2015.
In the years since, she’s fought through health setbacks, industry stress and fogs of expectation. But every so often she drops a single that keeps the mystique intact. The glossy ‘80s pep of ‘Don’t Forget’. The woozy strings and goth-cloaked aura of ‘Downhill Lullaby’. The crunchy electro-stomp of ‘Cross You Out’, her duet with Charli XCX. The throughline’s always been a commitment to making honest anthems that never compromise.
She’ll bring her blend of pop and heavy metal heart to the intimate upstairs space at The Forum in what’s sure to be the hot-ticket performance of the festival.
Yves Tumor
- The Forum
- Psychedelia and electronica
The enigmatic multi-instrumentalist and producer based in Turin, Italy returns to Australia, showcasing a groundbreaking mix of rock, psychedelia, and electronica. At The Forum, performance promises an exploration of sonic boundaries, delivering a visceral and soulfully chaotic experience that defies easy categorisation.
Tirzah
- The Forum
- Dance pop and raw R&B
Essex native Tirzah heads to RISING with a sound that dives deep into club vibes and submerged sonics. Having just collaborated with producer Mica Levi on new album trip9love…???, expect a mesmerizing performance featuring her haunting vocals and the minimalist, yet profound beats.
Blonde Redhead
- Melbourne Town Hall
- Noise-rock and pop
American indie-rock veterans Blonde Redhead return with their first album in nine years, bringing their artful blend of noise-rock and pop to the Melbourne Town Hall. Expect a performance filled with bittersweet melodies and the band’s signature lush sound.
Snoh Aalegra
- The Forum
- Soul, R&B, and rap
Iranian-Swedish sensation and Prince mentee, Snoh Aalegra, known for her cinematic soul, takes the Forum stage for RISING. Her unique blend of soul, R&B, and rap, marked by an intimate and smouldering vocal style, promises an immersive experience of emotional highs and reflective moments.
Due to demand, a second show has been announced for Snoh Aalegra on Thursday June 6.
Jeremy Deller
- With Victorian Brass Bands
- Free concerts around the CBD
- Brass, acid house and Detroit techno
- Sat 1 June — 16 June
- Melbourne Town Hall
- State Library Station
- Town Hall Station
- More info here
Jeremy Deller’s second project for RISING, Acid Brass, sees the UK artist in collaboration with Victorian Brass Bands, with a work that celebrates brass band music, acid house and Detroit techno. Working with community brass bands from around the state, musicians will perform a repertoire of acid house anthems in a series of free public concerts across the CBD.
Shannon Michael Cane: A Celebration of Someone Great
- A tribute to the late Shannon Michael Cane
- CHRISTEENE, MAN ON MAN, Andee Frost, Gerard Frank Long and Stereogamous plus more to be announced
- June 1
Shannon Michael Cane: A Celebration of Someone Great pays tribute to a maverick of the Melbourne arts scene of the early 2000s. While behind the desk of Polyester Records and Outre Gallery, he was also throwing his infamous Witness Protection Program parties, and busy founding the groundbreaking gay zine, They Shoot Homos Don’t They? In New York, he revolutionised art book fairs during his time at Printed Matter. In 2017, Shannon passed away, leaving a huge void among friends and an immense network of collaborators.
In the year it would have been SMC’s 50th birthday, RISING’s opening night party will smudge outside the lines in honour of his work and memory.
Tinariwen
- Rock, blues, and traditional African music
- The Forum
Tuareg musical collective Tinariwen brings their soulful blend of rock, blues, and traditional African music to RISING. They’ve toured with the Rolling Stones and recorded with the likes of Nels Cline, TV on the Radio and Kurt Vile.
Good Morning
- Indie-jangle
- Thursday June 6
- Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre
The Eltham College expats expand their sound at the Recital Centre for a rare hometown show. Think Dick Diver, Liz Phair and Brian Wilson soundtracking a black-and-white musical about drifting into your thirties.
CRIP RAVE THEORY
- The Substation
- Aisha Mirza, DJ Bae Bae, Tinka, Aquenta
- Electronic
- Sat 15 June
- 8 hours
- Tickets here
A club night outside the club that draws on disabled/crip knowledge to create more intersectional and accessible party spaces. A chance for partygoers to show up and experience all parts of their identity.
SHOUSE : COMMUNITAS
- Sat 15 June
- St Paul’s Cathedral
- 60 minutes
- Apply here
Communitas is a mass-musicking event for all. Led by Melbourne dance-floor mavericks, SHOUSE, it’s a rapturous coming together: many people, many voices, many hands, making spontaneous music. There’s no audience, no auditions. Everyone’s in the band—including you.
SHOUSE’s ‘Love Tonight’ was the kind of sleeper hit artists dream of. A club anthem, borne from ecstatic jams in a Brunswick warehouse that was given a second life on the top of the international charts—amplified via European dance floors in 2020, as people shook out months of isolation. Today it’s tracking over a billion streams and counting.
Now they’re taking that energy into Communitas. Bringing the city together beneath the vaulting ceilings of St Paul’s Cathedral. A chance to find new friendships and strengthen old ones, through collective music-making.
Communitas—a second coming of community.
Acclaimed theatre and stage shows
Counting and Cracking
- S. Shakthidharan
- Co-produced by Belvoir St Theatre and Kurinji, and directed by Eamon Flack
- 31 May—23 June
- Union Theatre, University of Melbourne
- Tickets here
An acclaimed Sri Lankan-Australian saga that follows four generations over five decades from Sri Lanka to Sydney. It will make its much-anticipated Victorian premiere at University of Melbourne’s new cultural precinct.
Big Name No Blankets
- ILBIJERRI Theatre Company
- Co-directed by Dr Rachael Maza AM and Anyupa Butcher
- Fri 31 May — 2 June
- Melbourne Town Hall
- 1 hour 45 minutes
- Tickets here
A rock ‘n’ roll story celebrating the trailblazing music icons, Warumpi Band and inspired by tales from founding member Sammy Tjapanangka Butcher. The epic new commission plugs into the heart of Papunya via Sammy’s tales of the Warumpi Band — Australia’s original First Peoples rock stars, known for their anthems Blackfella/Whitefella, My Island Home and Jailanguru Pakurnu.
FOOD
- Geoff Sobelle
- Melbourne Theatre Company’s Lawler Theatre
An illusionist’s dinner party becomes an absurd meditation on human consumption in FOOD, an Australian premiere from poetic illusionist and master clown from New York, Geoff Sobelle. Audiences gather round the stage-sized table where at first, Sobelle plays the fine-dining waiter. Then he’s off: tracing the history of food—way, way back into distant fields of buffalo and grain.
Chapter One of the Cadela Força Trilogy: The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella
- Carolina Bianchi
- Malthouse Theatre
Shaken by the death of Italian artist Pippa Bacca — who was sexually assaulted and murdered while performing a work about human kindness — Bianchi presents a performance-lecture. She presents vividly about the spectre of sexual violence that runs through the history of art, until she hits an impasse. Then things go dark.
Content warning: this performance is not recommended for persons aged under 18. Certain scenes may offend some viewers.
8/8/8 REST
- Harriet Gillies, Marcus McKenzie, Unfunded Empathy & Collaborators
- Fri 7 June — 9 June
- Theatres Building, Arts Centre Melbourne
- 8 hours
- More info here
The first part of the triptych, 8/8/8: WORK, presented at RISING 2022, was an 8-hour immersive experience, highlighting the absurdity and violence of modern workplaces. 8/8/8: REST shifts gears by delving into the unconscious on an 8-hour nocturnal journey through the many levels of Arts Centre Melbourne.
One Single Action (in an ocean of everything)
- Lucy Guerin Inc
One Single Action (in an ocean of everything) sees dance duo Amber McCartney and Geoffrey Watson ride the internal and external rifts in a world fraught with interference. In and out of sync, they move in conflict and in harmony— through fragmented terrain that leads in one direction. In an attempt to interrupt the acceleration of our times and pause the relentless scrolling of their anxieties, they resort to a single desperate action.
ONE SONG HISTOIRE(S) DU THÉÂTRE IV
- Miet Warlop
- Thu 13 June — 15 June
- Melbourne Town Hall
- Tickets here
ONE SONG HISTOIRE(S) DU THÉÂTRE IV is an utterly frenzied rock concert spiked with lactic acid, featuring one song performed over and over by a squad of musicians. At the same time, they run an obstacle course of balance beams, treadmills and trampolines—until they almost collapse from exhaustion.
Burnout Paradise
- Pony Cam Theatre Collective
- Malthouse Theatre
Four performers run over 15km on treadmills, manically multi-tasking before burn-out sets in. They simultaneously prepare a three-course meal, apply for an arts grant, recite a soliloquy from Hamlet, and call a game of Bingo with the audience… all the while running as if their lives depended on it.
ECLIPSE
- CERULEAN and Stone Motherless Cold with special guests
- Melbourne Town Hall
A First Peoples future-forward drag show that spans the ages—from the Big Bang(er) to the Paleocene, through the Beyoncé epoch and into the Blak queer future that awaits us all. Destroy the empire and dance among its remains in this world premiere.
You, Beauty
- Chunky Move
- Immigration Museum
- Fri 31 May — 15 June
- The Long Room, Immigration Museum
- 40 minutes
- Tickets here
Enter the innermost realm of Chunky Move’s latest work where the walls quiver, and time contorts.
Inside the Immigration Museum’s stately Long Room, a giant undulating inflatable acts as an explorable theatre and a sculptural form. Two dancers converse with each other and the abstract mass, as it warps and stretches.
Arkadia – The Substation
- Melanie Lane
- Wed 5 June — 8 June
- The SUBSTATION
- 60 minutes
- Tickets here
A dance opera that invites audiences to step through a wishing well into a utopian realm. Inspired by Greek mythology, it’s a Garden of Paradise where gods, nymphs and aliens transform. Bodies unite and suspend as entities tense and stretch the in-between of the natural world and advanced technologies.
ANITO
- Justin Shoulder
- Arts House
Queered Filipino myths surface through dance, installation, masquerade and haute couture costuming at the 2024 RISING festival. Live soundscapes flood the space as performers morph between animal, plant, human and machine. It’s the latest evolution of his theatre-dance-art hybrid.
Gurr Era Op
- Ghenoa Gela with Force Majeure in association with ILLBIJERRI Theatre Company
- Arts House
Torres Strait Islander women dance and weave stories of connection and culture, as their homeland is threatened by rising seas and climate catastrophe. Transforming the wisdom of creation stories into an urgent call from the now.
Melbourne Out Loud
- The archive of Rennie Ellis
- State Library Victoria
A free new exhibition of the late Australian photographer, best known for his fly-on-the-wall photography of celebrities, models, nightclubs and Australian suburbia.
For RISING, Rennie Ellis Up Late is a party curated by MzRizk, in the spirit of a photographer who didn’t just document the night, he got right there in it. Have a boogie with MzRizk, DJ Gavin Campbell, Rara Zulu, Voices of Halo, Crew-X and House of Diesel.
Searching For Sanctuary
- Sat 1 June
- State Library Victoria
- More info here
Experience the journey of an asylum seeker through the eyes of Barat Ali Batoor, a double Walkley-Award-winning photojournalist and reporter whose tale of survival takes us beyond the headlines to reveal the personal.
After publishing a piece in the Washington Post exposing the trade of underage prostitution in his homeland of Afghanistan, Batoor became the target of death threats. Forced to flee his country, he began a perilous journey of escape – but he never stopped taking photos. From Pakistan and Thailand to Indonesia and Australia, Batoor spent two years capturing the untold stories of what it means to be an asylum seeker. Witness Batoor’s poignant, life-affirming documentation of searching for sanctuary and overcoming unthinkable odds.
The return of favourite RISING festival staples
Melbourne Art Trams
Over the past three years, Melbourne Art Trams as part of RISING festival have been dedicated to First Peoples artists working and living in Victoria. They have become emblematic of Melbourne’s unrivalled artistic spirit, enchanting commuters, and passers-by alike. This year, breaking free from a dedicated theme, curator Jarra Karalinar Steel has selected works that embrace artistic freedom, unleashing a kaleidoscope of narratives, styles, and perspectives reflecting the vibrant essence of First Peoples culture, art, and design.
Night Trade
- RISING’s nightly social club
- Laneways beneath the Capitol Theatre to Howey Place
- Every night
RISING festival has a pulsing hub and nightly social club – Night Trade returns in 2024. This time, it delves deep into Melbourne’s hidden history as it sprawls across the network of laneways underneath the Capitol Theatre and connects through to Howey Place – the original home of Melbourne’s most eccentric and ambitious book shop and the first queer club in the city. Amongst the neon haze, discover installations, exhibitions, dumplings, micro-bars, interactive art, music and dance.
Hear My Eyes
- Hieroglyphic Being AKA Jamal Moss and Robin Fox
- Sun 9 June — 10 June
- Main Hall, Melbourne Town Hall
- Allow 2 hours
- Tickets here
Hear My Eyes is a RISING festival staple and this year sees contemporary musicians compose perform a new score to a pre-existing film. It returns to RISING with Hear My Eyes: Hellraiser, to reframe the 1987 extra-dimensional horror classic Hellraiser with an all new score and live laser performance.
RISING is taking place across Melbourne from June 1-16. For tickets and more information, head to their website here or follow them on Instagram here.
This article was made in partnership with RISING.
