Friday 5 June to Sunday 7 June. Lake Gkula Camping, Woodfordia. From AU $440. You escape the daily grind for three nights under the stars at the stunning Woodfordia. The Flow State Experience returns with an absolute monster of a wellness and music festival where the vibe is pure connection. Your days look like drifting between deep breathwork under the trees, guided meditation, and embodiment sessions across four active stages. Once the sun drops, the space transforms into massive movement ceremonies and live music sets from Nahko Bear and Deya Dova. All full experience tickets include your festival access and general campsite entry. It is the ultimate winter reset.

Selected nights, 24 May to 10 June. Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour. Free. Vivid Sydney's drone shows are back and this year they have a brand new home at Cockle Bay. Two shows per night at 7:30PM and 9:30PM across 11 nights, with 360 degree views of hundreds of drones painting the sky above the harbour. It is the kind of spectacle that genuinely stops you in your tracks. Shows run on 24, 25, 26 and 27 May, 31 May, 1, 2 and 3 June, and 8, 9 and 10 June. Free to watch, no ticket required. Extra train, light rail, bus and ferry services run on show nights. Start planning now because the good spots go early.

Sun 7 Jun 2026, 2pm. Ritz Cinemas Randwick, Cinema 1. Also screening Thu 11 Jun 2026, 2:10pm, State Theatre Sydney. Tickets from sff.org.au. Kangaroo Valley sits about 2 hours south of Sydney, ringed by dramatic cliffs and accessed by roads that make the outside world feel deliberately far away. Ian Darling spent 3 years filming the people who live and work there, quietly and mostly alone, milking cows, baking bread, volunteering at the carnival, keeping things running. The result is 180 minutes of unhurried cinema that owes more to Frederick Wiseman than anything currently streaming. No narration or talking heads. Just valley time, which turns out to be the thing most city audiences forgot they were missing. World Premiere. Sydney Film Festival runs 3-14 June 2026.

Sat 6 and Sun 7 Jun 2026, 9:00am to 4:00pm. Zestiny Farm, 138 George Downes Drive, Central Mangrove NSW. You could spend the long weekend on the couch wondering where your food comes from, or you could drive an hour from Sydney and find out. Zestiny Farm opens its gates for the Central Coast Harvest Festival with guided farm tours through 50 acres of certified organic produce, aquaponics, composting, worm tea brewing, and 3,000 lemon trees. Paddock to plate tastings, live sessions, hands-on activities, and fresh seasonal produce to take home. Family friendly, tickets are limited, and the Central Coast hinterland in June is exactly as good as it sounds.

Friday 22 May to Saturday 13 June. Circular Quay, The Rocks, Barangaroo, Darling Harbour and Sydney CBD. Free. You have 23 nights to wander a city that has completely lost its mind in the best possible way. Vivid Sydney is back for its 16th year and this time it runs day and night for the first time in the festival's history. The free 6.5 kilometre Light Walk stretches unbroken from Circular Quay through The Rocks, Barangaroo and Darling Harbour with 43 installations and projections lighting the whole route. The Sydney Opera House sails get the Opera Mundi treatment from French artist Yann Nguema. Cockle Bay hosts the Star-Bound drone show across 12 nights and the Laser Lightfall show every single night of the festival. Vivid LIVE at the Opera House, free concerts at Tumbalong Park, talks from the likes of Chloé Zhao and Zane Lowe, and a food program headlined by Yotam Ottolenghi. Over 80% of it is free. Lights on at 6pm nightly. Get on public transport and go.

23 May to 14 June. 207 Oxford St, Darlinghurst. Free entry. You walk into a month long vintage edit spanning five decades of fashion and come out carrying something you did not know you needed. Rival Collective has taken over the Oxford Street activation space in Darlinghurst with a curated haul of pre loved pieces running from the 70s through to the early 2000s. Think considered finds, not charity shop chaos. The space runs daily from 10am to 6pm across three weeks, so there is no scramble to get there on a single Saturday. Come once, come back. Either way, the rack will look different.

Sat 20 Jun & Sun 21 Jun 2026. Broadwater Parklands, Marine Parade, Southport QLD. Veterans compete. Civilians are welcome too. The Veteran Games is a military-style team competition built in direct response to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, designed to improve mental and physical health outcomes for current and former serving personnel through competition, community, and purpose. Veterans enter in teams of eight, taking on an obstacle course and surprise military-style events drawn from active service. If you have never served, there is a public challenge open to anyone, pairs only, military-style obstacles, static fitness exercises, and a 500m run between stations with a target completion time of 30 minutes. Four years in, 130 veterans competed at the 2025 Gold Coast finals alone. Spectator tickets are available for a family-friendly weekend on the broadwater.

Fri 25 Sep to Sun 27 Sep 2026. Evolve Sanctuary, Byron Hinterland NSW. You have been running on cortisol and calendar invites for nine months straight. Three days on private land in the Byron hinterland with Pete Evans on the pans, a waterfall hike that earns the ice bath, and a sauna that will make your corporate wellness program look like a participation trophy. Men only. Yin yoga, breathwork, bodywork, float tank, tea ceremony, and a magnesium pool between sessions. Every meal is paleo and ketogenic, built on local Northern Rivers meat, seafood, eggs, fruit and veg. Six eco cabins, queen beds, spring water showers. Strictly limited. September will be here faster than you think.

Friday 27 to Sunday 29 November 2026. Red Devils Park, Bangalow Road, Byron Bay. You head north for a weekend that actually does what it promises. Byron Wellness Festival brings together three days of music, movement and mindfulness at one of Byron Bay's most open and expansive outdoor spaces. Local wellness facilitators, live musicians and a lineup of international artists across workshops, performances and sessions designed to slow you down and switch you back on. The full ticket and artist lineup is still to come so get across their page now and be first to know when they drop. The kind of weekend that books out before most people realise it is happening.