Make the most of your King’s Birthday long weekend –Friday, 6 June to Monday, 9 June – by joining in Vivid Sydney celebrations. From the free Light Walk across five connecting zones to culinary journeys and joyous concerts, there are plenty of free and unmissable events to enjoy over these four dazzling nights. 

Be spoilt for choice on Friday night  

It’s up to you how you kick off your long weekend. You can simply marvel at the spectacular installations dotted along the Light Walk, or join an event hosted in one of the festival’s five zones – Circular Quay and The Rocks; Barangaroo; Martin Place and the CBD; Darling Harbour; and The Goods Line and Inner City.  

Draw energy from an evening of bright, breezy pop at Stella Jang + Ivoris, one of the free Tumbalong Nights series of concerts in Darling Harbour’s Tumbalong Park. Here you’ll enjoy the sounds of South Korean singer-songwriter Jang Seong-eun (better known by her stage name Stella Jang) and Melbourne’s Ivoris as you sway as one to genre-bending pop rhythms. 

If your idea of a memorable evening is dining taken to another level, you have your choice of two tempting Vivid Sydney food events on Friday night. Savour a three-course Vietnamese-inspired menu by renowned chef Luke Nguyen in the atmospheric, mist-draped Botanic House in the Royal Botanic Garden, where you’ll be invited to write your dreams on a red ribbon and tie it to an interactive wishing tree as part of Dream Mist at Botanic House.  

On your way back from the Royal Botanic Garden, be sure to explore the captivating installations in Martin Place, where the city centre sparkles once again as part of Vivid Sydney for the first time in seven years. Don't miss the Chasing Dreams Tunnel, an immersive passageway with programmable fairy lights that respond dynamically to your movements, inspired by the personal experiences and dreams of renowned Bundjalung artist Dr. Bronwyn Bancroft. Equally enchanting is BioDream, a mesmerizing psychedelic dreamscape that explores the boundary between consciousness and dreams, revealing the fleeting nature of existence. 

If you haven’t been lucky enough to score a ticket to one of the Vivid Sydney Dinners with Nigella Lawson in the Martin Place Metro station’s Muru Giligu tunnel, you can still enjoy complimentary daily screenings of acclaimed short films from Australia and overseas, as well as previews of movies on the Sydney Film Festival 2025 program at SFFTV: Sydney Film Festival in Martin Place between 6.30pm and 7.30pm.  

You can also explore the power of dreams at The Lucid Dream Collective by world-renowned Moment Factory, making their Vivid Sydney debut in Martin Place. Step into an AI photobooth where your portrait undergoes a dreamlike transformation of your choosing. Your dream vision can then join the collective projection, a mesmerising mosaic of light, textures, and faces representing our shared unconscious or be shared on social media. This interactive installation invites you to consider: where do our dreams go when we sleep? 

Or glide into the night at the new retro roller-skating rink, Neon Dreams, at Pier Street underpass in Darling Harbour. Skate to vinyl-only beats and dig into Shannon Martinez’s ultimate plant-based menu of classic American diner staples. Juicy burgers, crunchy fries, creamy mac & cheese and jelly donuts – all served alongside the Trolley'd bar, an innovative zero-waste cocktails and retro milkshakes featuring native Australian botanicals. 

Feel your spirit soar on Saturday  

Sydney plays hosts to three joyous music events on Saturday night of the long weekend. Venture into a mini festival-within-a-festival at Sound Escape at City Recital Hall, an 18+ day-into-night party. There will be an electrifying lineup of the hottest bands, DJs and musicians, immersive visuals and unexpected moments that challenge you to reframe your reality.   

And while the party goes on inside, outside Angel Place itself will be bathed in light for the free Sound Walk experience for the night, made possible by the NSW Government’s Open Streets Program, led by Transport for NSW. 

Sense the bass moving through your body and an electric energy filling the air as a line-up of all-female First Nations artists take to the Metro Theatre stage for My Sis: Celebrating 10 years of Bad Apples Music. Curated by Yorta Yorta rapper, author and actor Adam Briggs’s ground-breaking record label, the celebration features the infectious hip hop and R&B of artists such as Western Sydney’s Barkaa and southwest Sydney’s Riah. 

The free Tumbalong Nights concerts continue with Mumbai-based singer, Zaeden, brings his innovative pop and electronic dance music to Darling Harbour. After the performance, wander to Cockle Bay to witness Space to Dream, Samsung Electronics Australia's large-scale installation where three iridescent floating waterfalls transform into dynamic canvases of light and motion. Or make your own symphony of light and sound as you rise and descend on the seesaws of Curiosity by Amigo & Amigo, one of the Light Walk installations at Tumbalong Park. 

A short stroll from the Tumbalong Nights stage, Vivid Fire Kitchen transforms The Goods Line elevated walkway into a mesmerizing open-air food market. From aromatic chili-infused dishes to wood-fired delicacies, this culinary Fire & Spice-themed hotspot offers global flavours. Be inspired by some of the world’s best pitmasters, chefs and barbecue legends as you enjoy live demonstrations of cooking with fire.  

Then gather around the primal glow of Fireplaces, where giant fire pits, mesmerising flame sculptures, dramatic fire throwers, and radiant fire barrels create a captivating atmosphere of warmth and wonder. 

Settle in for screens and stages on Sunday 

Luxuriate in the sense of freedom the Sunday of a long weekend brings by losing yourself in a screening or a musical performance. 

Sydney Town Hall transforms the Old Sydney Burial Ground, the site of one of the city’s first cemeteries, into an atmospheric venue to screen the 1982 horror classic Poltergeist in Haus of Horror presents Poltergeist. The spookily immersive evening screening directed by Australia’s Queen of Spook, Felice Vale, and executive-produced by Sean Fernance also features live performers, interactive photo booths, DJs and installations.  

A few blocks away, iconic Australian musician Warren Ellis, film composer, co-founder of the Dirty Three, and long-time Nick Cave collaborator, takes to the stage of City Recital Hall for An Evening with Warren Ellis. Alongside a short solo set, Ellis will engage in an intimate conversation about music and his animal conservation efforts. 

Complementing this special event, Ellis's documentary Ellis Park screens at the State Theatre earlier that day as part of the Sydney Film Festival, offering fans an in-depth look into the artist's creative and humanitarian worlds. 

Head back down to Darling Harbour for the free Tumbalong Nights concert Dobet Gnahoré + Immy Owusu, an electric evening of African melodies and beats. Feel your feet stir as  Ghanaian-Dutch musician Immy Owusu gets the evening going with his unique “Afrodelik” fusion of Ghanaian highlife dance music, 1970s-era Zambian rock, surf rock, West African rhythms and psychedelia.  

Marvel at how the glowing cloud-like structures of the nearby The Cloud Swing installation change colour as people swing below them, before you’re mesmerised by the dynamic stage presence and irresistible modern Afropop grooves of French-based, Ivory Coast-born and Grammy award-winning artist Dobet Gnahoré. 

And while Afrobeats engulf Tumbalong Park, US multi-instrumentalist and composer Kamasi Washington – the go-to saxophonist for Kendrick Lamar who’s played on tracks by Childish Gambino, Snoop Dogg and St Vincent, among many others – brings his brilliant blend of jazz, R&B and orchestral influences to Carriageworks. 

Move to global beats on Monday 

Close out the long weekend with the free Tumbalong Nights concert Gabriele Poso + GabzaK in Darling Harbour. Between Italian percussionist Gabriele Poso’s blend of deep house, Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz-infused funk and Chilean-born, Sydney-based multi-instrumentalist GabzaK’s mix of tribal house, folktronica and Andean beats, you’ll be full of energy as you admire the installations on the Light Walk from Darling Harbour to Barangaroo and beyond.  

Enjoy a game of Kickit Team Tennis at Darling Quarter Village Green, where a pulse of light takes the place of a tennis ball to create a visually striking experience, and immerse in the surreal space of light, shape and sound that is Trispheric Garden, by Reelize Studio, at Barangaroo’s Sea Wall Lawn. 

Head to the Vivid Sydney blog to explore free events, find after-work itineraries, curator guides and more inspiration.