September in Brisbane: top events in your city this month
There are well over a thousand events on around Brisbane and the Gold Coast this month. These are the forty-odd we'd actually message the group chat about.
Riverfire opened the month with fireworks over the river, Brisbane Festival runs to the 26th, and the Coast gets its own festival on the sand. Every pick below links to its live page on Keen, with dates, prices and the ticket link; the links retire once an event is done, so if one tells you it's been and gone, that's the truth doing its job. For the always-current version, what's on in Brisbane is rebuilt from the catalogue nightly, and yes, Keen's Brisbane deliberately runs all the way down to the Gold Coast.
The big nights
Roma Street Parkland turns into an outdoor venue this month: Night at The Parkland runs a string of all-ages open-air shows, and four of them made this list, with Pnau on the 19th and Human Nature on the 13th in the same run.
Night at The Parkland: The Cruel Sea & Magic Dirt
Roma Street Parkland · Friday 11 September
The Cruel Sea play their ARIA-winning Three Legged Dog in full for its 30th anniversary, with Magic Dirt along for the ride. Outdoors, all ages, and exactly the lineup your older sibling claims to have seen first.
Night at The Parkland: The Temper Trap
Roma Street Parkland · Saturday 12 September
Sweet Disposition under the open sky, with Clea and Lastings on before. Bring the whole crew; this one converts everyone.
Night at The Parkland: Icehouse
Roma Street Parkland · Friday 18 September
Great Southern Land outdoors with forty-five years of hits behind it. Gates at six, singalong by eight.
Night at The Parkland: Missy Higgins
Roma Street Parkland · Sunday 20 September, gates 4pm
Scar and The Special Two on a Sunday afternoon, all ages. The gentlest possible way to end a weekend.
Electric Callboy
Riverstage · Saturday 12 September
German electronicore chaos at the Riverstage, with Ice Nine Kills and Coldrain on the bill and a 10pm curfew doing its best. Loud, ridiculous, unmissable.
The Cat Empire with Queensland Symphony Orchestra
The Fortitude Music Hall · Sunday 13 September
A much-loved band backed by a full symphony orchestra. The kind of one-off that people mention for years.
Belle and Sebastian
The Fortitude Music Hall · Tuesday 15 September
If You're Feeling Sinister played in full for its 30th anniversary. Gentle on the ears, devastating on the feelings.
Violent Soho
The Fortitude Music Hall · Friday 25 September · 18+
One of the loudest and best-loved Australian rock bands going, back on home turf. Wear shoes you can jump in.
The Angels: 50 Years On
The Triffid, Newstead · Friday 11 September · 18+ Free
Fifty years since Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, and the whole room already knows its one job. A free ticket to a national tradition.
Brisbane Festival and the stage
Brisbane Festival
Across the city · until 26 September
Three weeks of theatre, circus, music and dance built around the world's earliest-rising city, from First Light shows through to After Dark. The umbrella over half this section; Festival Village at South Bank is its riverside heart.
The Choir of Man
South Bank · until 26 September
Nine blokes, huge harmonies and a working bar on stage. Olivier-nominated, globally adored, and the easiest sell on this whole list.
Are You Lonesome Tonight
South Bank · from 9 September
Country music and opera colliding in a spiegeltent: Puccini and Verdi next to Slim Dusty and Dolly Parton. Come in jeans and boots or a ball gown; both are correct.
ESCAPE
QPAC, South Brisbane · 23 to 27 September
Performers hurling themselves through moving architecture, visceral and high-octane. The festival show to pick if you only pick one.
Strong is the New Pretty
QPAC, South Brisbane · until 19 September
Suzie Miller, the playwright behind Prima Facie, tells the story of how the AFLW got made. Timely doesn't begin to cover it in grand final month.
Koreaboo
La Boite Theatre, Kelvin Grove · sessions through September
Hannah planned the trip: go to Korea, meet her birth mother, get answers. The Queensland premiere of a sharp, big-hearted Griffin Theatre production.
City Hall Concerts: Buster Keaton with live organ
Brisbane City Hall · Tuesday 8 September, midday
A Keaton classic on the big screen with the City Hall organ playing underneath, marking a hundred years since his golden run. A lunchtime plan that beats every sandwich.
Exhibitions and slow afternoons
The Red Dress
Museum of Brisbane · sessions through September
One dress, embroidered by 380 people across 51 countries over 14 years. Stories stitched into every panel, and far more moving than that sentence suggests.
Precious
Museum of Brisbane · all month
The city's most obsessive collectors open their cabinets: thousands of curiosities under one roof. You will leave planning a collection of your own.
Brisbane Sculpture Festival
Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mt Coot-tha · all month
Sculpture scattered through the gardens by Sculptors Queensland. Wander, argue about your favourites, coffee after.
Comedy
Saturday Night Standup with Danielle Walker & Friends
Good Chat Comedy Club, Petrie Terrace · Saturday 19 September
A headline debut with a stacked support bill in a proper comedy room on Caxton St. Twenty-nine dollars for a guaranteed Saturday.
Damien Power: From Nothing
Good Chat Comedy Club · Tuesday 15 September
A three-time Most Outstanding Show nominee building a new hour in front of you, jokes still warm from the forge.
Arj Barker: The Classics
Burleigh Town Hotel · Saturday 26 September
Twenty-five years of the best bits in one night, down the Coast. Bring the mate who quotes him anyway.
Dan Rath: Help Me Please
HOTA, Surfers Paradise · Saturday 26 September
Very dry, very sharp stand-up from a festival winner who once dressed as a sewing needle and hid inside a strawberry. That either sells it or it doesn't.
Food and drink
Crafted Beer Festival
Kurrawa Park, Broadbeach · Saturday 12 September
Australia's big beachside beer festival: brews, live music and a very long afternoon by the sand. Forty-five dollars in, sea breeze included.
Festitalia
Sunday 20 September
Queensland's premier Italian festival: food, wine, music and tradition for a whole afternoon. Arrive hungry, that is the entire strategy.
Samford Harvest, Spring
Loop Growers, Draper · Friday 11 September
A long shared table on the farm, cooked by a local chef from what the paddocks gave. The dinner-party invite you cannot get any other way.
Headlands Australian Whisky Tasting
Cobbler, West End · Saturday 19 September
Five Australian single malts, cask by cask, guided at one of the country's best whisky bars. Small, serious and very good fun.
Markets
Brisbane City After Dark Markets
Brisbane City Markets · Friday 25 September, 4pm to 9pm
Seventy traders, street food and a pop-up bar in the middle of town: a brand-new Friday night fixture. Go before everyone decides it's their thing.
Fashion Thrift Society
Brisbane Showgrounds, Bowen Hills · Saturday 26 September Free
A full day of pre-loved fashion, food trucks and rummaging with mates. Free in, dangerous for the wallet anyway.
Carseldine Barktoberfest
Carseldine Markets · Saturday 12 September, from 6am
Ten years of Barktoberfest: dog competitions, 150 stalls and, yes, a doggy wedding. Free to wander, impossible not to smile.
Riverside at the Gardens Market
City Botanic Gardens · Sundays
Forty years of craft stalls, coffee and live music in the gardens. The default answer to a slow Sunday.
Free and outdoors, Coast included
SWELL Sculpture Festival
Currumbin Beach · from 11 September Free
Ten days of large-scale sculpture along the sand from Currumbin to Tugun, free to wander at any hour. The Coast's best annual excuse for a beach walk.
Flicks & Fireworks
Surfers Paradise beach · Sunday 27 September Free
A movie on the sand with fireworks over the water: a brand-new last-Sunday-of-the-month tradition in Surfers. Take a blanket and someone you like.
Seaside Sounds
Gold Coast beaches · three Sundays from 6 September Free
Free live music by the beach across three consecutive Sundays, starting with a 70s and 80s soundtrack. Picnic rug, sunset, done.
Brisbane Pride Festival Launch Party
Brunswick Hotel, New Farm · Saturday 26 September Free
Pride season opens with a free party at the Brunswick. Start here, plan the rest of the festival from the beer garden.
In Conversation: The World of The Jim Henson Company
QAGOMA, South Brisbane · Monday 14 September Free
The stories behind decades of Henson magic, alongside QAGOMA's new Make, Believe, Magic exhibition. Free, and full of the stuff you'll retell at dinner.
Late ones
Green Velvet
The Tivoli · Friday 25 September
The Chicago house original behind Percolator and La La Land, in one of the best rooms in the country. Flashing lights, big grins.
Ferreck Dawn at the River Hub
City Botanic Gardens River Hub · Sunday 27 September, 2pm to 6pm
Open-air house on the river with the skyline behind the decks. A Sunday session with an actual headliner.
CLUTCH
The End Bar, West End · Saturday 12 September
A lesbian and queer party with dyke-led DJs, drag and a dance floor that goes till late. Thirteen dollars, all heart.
Something weirder
The Dark Side of the Moon at the Planetarium
Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium, Mt Coot-tha · sessions through September
The album in full surround sound with visuals wrapped around the dome. The best-value mind-bend in town.
Alcotraz: Prison-Themed Cocktail Bar
Fortitude Valley · sessions all month · 18+
Orange jumpsuit on, contraband in, cocktails mixed under the noses of corrupt guards. Deeply silly and completely committed to the bit.
South Brisbane Cemetery Moonlight Tour
Dutton Park · Friday 25 September
Torchlight, headstones and a thousand stories from the original night-time cemetery walk. No two tours the same.
Silent Disco Under the Stars at SWELL
Currumbin Beach · Saturday 12 September
Headphones on, bare feet in the sand, three DJs battling for your channel. Thirty dollars for the Coast's favourite beach dance party.
Candlelight Ballet: Swan Lake & More
Saint John's Cathedral · Friday 25 September
Tchaikovsky by candlelight with dancers under a cathedral roof. The fanciest forty-two dollars you'll spend this month.
The part where you actually go
That's the list. The gap between reading it and standing in one of those rooms is the same as ever: someone has to pick a date and make the call.
That's the job Keen does. The quickest way in is Find a time: pick two or three dates that could work, add an idea or two from this page, and drop one link in the group chat. Everyone answers from their browser, no app and no account needed. You see which date wins, tap once, and it's a real plan with RSVPs and a chat of its own.
And once your mates are on Keen too, it starts doing the noticing for you: everyone marks the nights they're free, and when yours line up, Keen tells you, along with what's on that actually suits the crew.
September's forty best excuses are above. Pick one, name a night, and send the message.
Start closer in. See what's on in the next few days, pick a night, send the link.
What's on in Brisbane this weekendGet Keen free on the App Store or Google Play.
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