Light shows and festivals in Melbourne

It's baaack! After two hugely popular winter seasons, Melbourne's favourite illuminated event is returning. From June 14 to August 4, take a nighttime stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens and experience luminous pathways, lit-up tree canopies, soothing soundscapes and brand new installations. For the upcoming season, you can expect a reimagined 2.2km trail accompanied by stunning lakeside reflections, large-scale illuminated sculptures and other wonders, with more than 100,000 tiny lights on display.

Rising is back for sixteen nights across three weekends from June 1-16. As a chill settles over the city, the festival returns with a nocturnal vengeance boasting a packed line-up of 116 events. Choose from a mix of free and ticketed options for performances and installations encompassing theatre, music, dance and art. Wander through large-scale installations, micro-bars and everything in between as our landmarks and labyrinthine laneways are drenched in a new light. A whopping 651 Australian and international artists will gather to warm Melbourne’s spirits, in a festival celebrating contemporary creativity of all kinds.

A brand-new experience will be among the many illuminated sights across Melbourne this winter – an underground labyrinth attraction with more than 144,000 lights.

Firelight Labyrinth will be the main attraction of this year's Firelight Festival, transforming the subterranean space underneath Marvel Stadium into a maze of light and sound. The new attraction, designed by international creative lighting specialists Mandylights, will make its world debut right here in Melbourne. 

Entering the immersive experience, visitors will weave their way through the multimedia labyrinth, featuring cutting-edge technology that's never been used in Australia. It will portray a modern version of the mythology of Theseus and the Minotaur, following Theseus' descent into the labyrinth and his ensuing battle with the Minotaur. 

The experience will open on June 28 and run until July 14, with ticketed sessions running from 10am to 10pm each day. This unique experience is sure to be popular, so to snap up a spot to experience it for yourself get your hands on a ticket stat, available through Ticketmaster.

For more information about the labyrinth experience, head to the Firelight website. 

Looking for more things to do this winter? Check out our guide to festivals happening this season. 

Choo choo! The Train of Lights is back on the tracks for 2024 and ready to captivate passengers with a magical winter journey through the Dandenong Ranges. Australia’s favourite steam train Puffing Billy will be your conductor for this two-and-a-half-hour round trip that illuminates the natural beauty of the region with thousands of dazzling lights. Departing from Lakeside Station, you’ll be immersed in a spectacle of neon colours as acclaimed lighting specialists Resolution X brighten up the countryside with sparkles, rainbows and hypnotic patterns. The historic train will also be adorned with stunning visual effects, which will light up the trees, tracks and passing towns along the way. 

This year, a brand-new illuminated attraction invites Melburnians to experience something truly special, with an Indigenous-created event inspired by the rich tapestry of First Nations' traditional storytelling. Gumbuya Dreaming will be a mesmerising digital light experience, taking up residence at Gumbuya World theme park this winter. Captivating light installations and soundscapes will explore nature through her 60,000 year journey – highlighting the beauty of flowers, the dance of fire and water, and the majesty of land and animals. Set along a wildlife trail, visitors will also be immersed in a soundscape as they wander along the luminous trail. 

Grab your wands and your Hogwarts house tie, because a brand new magical experience that is every Potterhead's dream is coming to Melbourne.

Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience is apparating to the Mornington Peninsula in 2024, with a mystical encounter that will have you living out your witch or wizard fantasies in the muggle world. Follow in the daring footsteps of Harry himself through the infamous Forbidden Forest, where you'll meet hippogriffs and unicorns, as well as cast powerful spells. The outdoor trail adventure will lead you on a fully immersive journey, finishing with a Potter-themed village that has food, drink and merch on offer.

Warner Bros is bringing this exciting experience Down Under after whirlwind success in the US, UK and Europe, with the Forbidden Forest making its Australian debut deep in the woods of Mt Martha next April. 

Suitable for fans of all ages, tickets for this magical experience are on sale now. You can find out more on the website here. 

Looking for more fun things to do in Melbourne? Check out what's on this week here. 

Italian polymath, painter, inventor and astounding genius Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most celebrated artists and scientists of all time, yet seeing his works is typically out of reach for the average Aussie. Well, all that’s about to change thanks to the Lume Melbourne’s new immersive experience.  Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius will feature massive projections of some of the world’s most famous works of art, including the ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘The Last Supper’. These four-storey high projections showcase da Vinci’s breathtaking Renaissance paintings in a way that’s much more accessible than a trip to the Louvre. 

The colourful creatures that make up ACMI’s latest, world premiere exhibition burst to life from a single drawn line, before growing and changing right before your eyes. The more you move and interact in the space, the more animated these curious characters will get, morphing between forms and textures for a hyperreal experience. Beings is the name of this innovative exhibition, which will open from May 22 and stick around until September 29. The name refers to the friendly digital critters seemingly ‘living’ in the exhibition’s large-scale digital screens, just waiting for you to come and play. These generative digital artworks are constantly changing, which means no two people will see the same exhibition, and each time you visit will also be unique.

Joy features seven brand new commissioned installations from leading Victorian-based creatives, each expressing the artists’ own personal joy. You can expect an emotive adventure where colour and storytelling combine, and big happy moments that sit alongside more reflective ones. Venezuelan-born Australian artist Nadia Hernández has filled the Immigration Museum’s hallway with bold collage works, ‘future positive’ fashion designer Nixi Killick has created a ‘joy generator’ and queer artist Spencer Harrison has created a runway where you can strut your stuff. Plus, much-loved pop artist and designer Callum Preston has constructed a full-scale replica of a nineties video store, a joy he never thought he would miss until he realised it was gone.