Marking the Festival’s golden milestone — 1976 to 2026 — the Hargraves Street Party opens our 50th anniversary with a joyful, powerful welcome to ten days of creativity, community and connection.
This much-loved celebration draws on the Festival’s long tradition of place-based storytelling. Hargraves Street becomes a meeting ground for locals, families, visitors and artists to gather, share space and step into a new chapter together. From 6–9pm, the free program brings the heart of Castlemaine into full view, honouring Country, community and the decades of creative energy that have shaped the Festival’s identity.
The evening begins with a Welcome to Country by Uncle Rick Nelson, followed by performances from The Nalderun Song Project, Castlemaine Secondary College band, Castlemaine Circus, and the pulsating reggae and dub of Heartical Hi-Powa with Stryka D. Expect high-octane dancehall from Jungle City, gravity-defying acrobatics from Cho Karin, and genre-blending Colombian-Australian electronica from Amaru Tribe — a lively, generous snapshot of the cultural threads woven through central Victoria and beyond.
After 9pm, the celebration shifts gear.
With a Party Pass, audiences step into an after-dark world of electronic music and dancefloor culture, activating two iconic Castlemaine spaces: the MAXI IGA underground car park and our beloved Theatre Royal.
The ticketed program features:
• Theatre Royal — Intermood, Harvey Sutherland
• MAXI IGA Underground Carpark — Tom Barker, Pjenne & Millu
Fifty years in the making, this Opening Night event is both a tribute to where we’ve come from and an invitation to imagine what comes next. Join us as we light up Hargraves Street in a Flashback Flashforward celebration of past flavours and future adventures.