Horizon Festival
From 1–10 May 2026, the Sunshine Coast transforms into a canvas for bold ideas and unforgettable experiences.
Horizon Festival returns for its tenth anniversary, inviting you to journey across Kabi Kabi and Jinibara Country, creating a playground for creativity, connection and celebration set against the backdrop of the breathtaking Sunshine Coast.
Horizon is more than a festival; it’s a feeling. It’s the salt on your skin at Kings Beach as dancers bring the shoreline to life. It’s the quiet of the Glass House Mountains at twilight, voices joining in song and ceremony. It’s laughter in Nambour’s streets, music flowing from Maroochydore’s Solbar, and conversations that continue long after the sun sets behind the hills.
For ten days, we celebrate people, place, and possibility. Our program of 35+ events spans First Nations-led gatherings, immersive food experiences, dance and movement, live music, visual art, and family adventures, each crafted to spark wonder and deepen connection. Horizon is shaped by community: makers, dreamers, and storytellers who call the Sunshine Coast home, and audiences who come for the moments and stay for the conversations.
We honour the Traditional Owners, the first artists and storytellers, whose enduring connection to these lands guides every step of our journey. Step to the edge where ideas and adventures collide: join us on the Horizon!
First Nations Sub-Committee Members & Traditional Owners
Aunty Helena Gulash, Lyndon Davis and Jason Murphy
It is my great pleasure to welcome you to Horizon 2026, marking ten years of this much‑loved festival.
As Traditional Custodians of Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) and Jinibara Country, our role within Horizon has been to honour our Ancestors by continuing to celebrate our deep-rooted cultural connection to these lands, waters and skies.
We work collaboratively to strengthen the ecology of our arts and cultural practices, and to ensure this festival remains a place where audiences can experience powerful First Nations work grounded in Country and community. I’m proud to have been involved since the early stages of Horizon’s inception and to witness how the voices of Kabi Kabi and Jinibara and other First Nations Peoples have continued to grow at the heart of the program.
This year, First Nations programming continues to beat strongly throughout the festival — through music, visual art, dance, story, ceremony, and contemporary performance that speaks to both our deep history and our evolving futures.
We invite you to join us as we celebrate a decade of Horizon, and continue moving toward a future where Kabi Kabi and Jinibara arts and cultures are strengthened, celebrated, and centred within a dynamic and innovative First Nations Arts and Cultural industry.
Sunshine Coast Mayor
Madame Rosanna Natoli
A very warm welcome to Horizon Festival 2026, the Sunshine Coast’s premier celebration of people, place and possibility, and a proud milestone year as we mark the festival’s tenth anniversary.
This year’s festival invites us to reimagine what’s possible when creativity leads the way and when art and culture are shaped by, and for, the people.
Across 10 days, our region will transform into a canvas for contemporary performance, music, visual art, First Nations storytelling, immersive experiences and unforgettable moments of collective joy.
In our Sunshine Coast Biosphere, the relationship between people and nature shapes who we are. Horizon Festival reflects this connection, embracing creativity inspired by the landscapes, stories and communities of Kabi Kabi and Jinibara Country.
This flagship cultural event is a key deliverable of the Sunshine Coast Creative Arts Plan 2023–2038 and a key pillar of our region’s artistic landscape as we move toward the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Through Horizon, we are strengthening our creative sector and contributing to our vibrant, confident cultural identity.
The festival invites locals and visitors alike to see our region through a different lens – to gather in surprising places and to experience how art can deepen our understanding of each other and the places we share.
However you choose to experience Horizon Festival, I know you’ll be inspired by the creativity, authenticity and sense of belonging that make this event so special.
Message from the Minister for the Environment and Tourism and Minister for Science and Innovation, the Honourable Andrew Powell MP:
The Horizon Festival 2026 is a much‑loved highlight of the Sunshine Coast’s creative calendar and a powerful expression of our people and our place.
It creates space for connection and conversation, inviting audiences to wonder, share, and engage with the world in new and meaningful ways.
Now celebrating its tenth year, the festival continues to champion a wide range of voices and a strong sense of belonging, shaped by the community spirit that has supported it over the past decade.
The Crisafulli Government is proud to support Horizon Festival through Tourism and Events Queensland’s Homegrown Fund, recognising the important role Queensland‑grown events play in strengthening communities and attracting visitors to our regions.
While attending Horizon Festival, I encourage visitors to explore more of the Sunshine Coast and enjoy the natural beauty and warm hospitality that make this region such a special place to spend time.
Horizon Festival Director
Bec Martin
We’re so excited to welcome you to Horizon Festival 2026!
The Sunshine Coast has an extraordinary artistic heart: it is bold, independent, and deeply connected to place. This year’s program celebrates those qualities while creating new opportunities for local artists to collaborate, experiment, take risks, and share their stories on a national stage. We are also opening the doors wider than ever, inviting our community to take part and contribute their own stories along the way.
Horizon Festival is built with deep respect for the land we gather on and the people who have cared for it for generations. We acknowledge the Kabi Kabi and Jinibara peoples as the Traditional Owners of this place, and we honour their continuing culture, connection, and custodianship.
This is a festival shaped by its surroundings. Art here does not just arrive; it responds. It shifts, celebrates, and transforms. From the hinterland to the coastline, from small, intimate moments to big, joyful spectacles, Horizon 2026 invites you to see familiar places differently, gather in unexpected settings, and be delighted, surprised, and moved.
At its heart, Horizon is about coming together. Across cultures, communities, spaces, and stories, we gather to share, celebrate, exchange, and create something that feels genuinely and uniquely ours.
From experimental performance to day-time dance parties, from cutting‑edge art to regenerative food experiences, from family films to live music and comedy, there is something here for everyone.
This is the Sunshine Coast. Let’s meet on the Horizon!
