The Sleepless Footscray Festival returns for its fourth year with performances across sixteen unconventional venues
Sleepless Footscray Festival is set to illuminate Melbourne’s inner west this May with a diverse lineup of music, art and immersive experiences.
The after-dark arts festival will transform Footscray’s CBD for two weeks, turning hidden alleys into nightscapes, familiar venues into adventurous spaces, and unused buildings into creative hubs. Now in its fourth year, Sleepless Footscray Festival builds on previous success by staging art installations, film screenings, performances and immersive experiences across sixteen underutilised venues.
Sleepless Footscray Festival
- When: 2-18 May 2025
- Where: Various locations across Footscray CBD, Melbourne
Check out our gig guide, our stage guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
Transforming unconventional spaces
The 2025 program features an eclectic mix of events highlighting the suburb’s potential as a thriving arts community with vibrant nightlife. Festival highlight The Door In Question offers an immersive theatre production illustrating the experience of living with mental illness, where spaces shift unexpectedly and corridors stretch in unfamiliar directions.
Golden Scissor Puppets will transform a derelict building for Year Of The Freak – A Homecoming, creating an immersive world of large-scale puppetry, live performance and surreal installation. Meanwhile, Skullies Cinema presents a movie night featuring films by Footscray’s giant Snuff Puppets, hosted by Skullie Empresario.
Celebrating cultural diversity
Footscray Celebrates Africa showcases the suburb’s vibrant African cultures with free live music, dance and musical education, featuring performances by Jarabi Band, Mandé Spirit, Seben Brothers, WALA is Life, and Stani Goma, plus vinyl-spun sets by a special guest DJ.
Other program highlights include Olivia Brasil’s intimate performance celebrating women’s voices in Brazilian Popular Music, photo series The Empty Seat capturing abandoned chairs across Melbourne streets, experimental narrative project Untitled Baseball Game, tactile installation Womb, and post-punk troupe Ad Interim’s evening of dark, experimental underground music.
Supporting local artists
The festival is supported by Maribyrnong City Council and will fund twenty-one artists through its Satellite Grant program, providing resources to develop and showcase their work. This co-production funding model ensures artists have financial freedom to fully express themselves while contributing to Footscray’s cultural transformation.
Building community through art
Founded by local creatives Troy Rainbow, JJ Wilson and Alex Mansell, Sleepless Festival is a registered charity with a long-term vision to establish year-round arts programs supporting diverse community groups. The festival aims to celebrate the bold, creative spirit of Melbourne’s inner west while highlighting Footscray as a safe, vibrant and multicultural hub.
Some events are free while others are ticketed, with bookings essential for all performances.
For more information, head here.
