Wallaby Creek Festival 2026 will be held from 25-27 September. Photos: Supplied.
Organisers are working to make this year’s 24th Wallaby Creek Festival on the Cape bigger and better than ever with the help of a sizeable grant to lock in talented live music acts.
The three-day celebration of music and the arts will be held at 720 Shiptons Flat Road, Rossville, south of Cooktown, from 25 to 27 September.
The extensive live music line-up includes Mama Kin Spender, Sunny Coast Rude Boys, Djawarray, Ella Hartwig, The Strides, The Bennies, Dizzy Days, The Go Set, Tek Tek, Obisun, Ben Jansz, Yazmindi, Phat Love, the Cooktown State School Band and Cooktown Music Collective.
Wallaby Creek Festival media coordinator Nina Schoenborn said organisers were aiming for a crowd numbering about 2000 to soak in the packed program, which includes workshops, poets breakfasts, as well as circus, dancing, cabaret and roaming street theatre performances.
Market and food and drink stalls will be available at the festival, which welcomes camping among lush rainforest surroundings. Facilities include bush showers and composting toilets.
A dedicated children’s festival will have activities to keep the youngest festival-goers entertained.
Ms Schoenborn said it was always a big job pulling Wallaby Creek Festival together, but organisers were optimistic ahead of this year’s event.
“It’s huge. A lot of people in the community are involved in the festival in some way, some with more critical roles, some with smaller roles. There’s a lot of people involved from the area and also some people further afield, you know, like Kuranda and Cape Tribulation for example,” she said.
The festival was previously held at Home Rule and the Rossville site was affected by flooding in recent years, but Ms Schoenborn said 2026 had been relatively smooth sailing.
“We had all these setbacks with the new site and infrastructure and the floods, so it’s kind of nice to have a year where it’s just sort of OK. It’s just the usual organisation, rather than cleaning up the whole site for months and months and months,” she said.
“We’re back on our feet. We’re settled at the new site; the infrastructure’s there. We’ve overcome the floods, and now we’ve got this extra grant to get amazing bands as well.”
The grant of about $100,000 was made available through the Federal Government’s Revive Live program, which provides $12.5 million to back Aussie live music venues and festivals in 2026-27.
Gates open 8 am on Thursday 24 September. Check out the Wallaby Creek Festival website and Facebook page for more information.
Tickets are available online at Humanitix.
Wallaby Creek Festival organisers are hoping to see about 2000 people through the gates this year. Photo: Supplied.
