The Sidney Myer free orchestral concerts at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl are one of the highlights of Melbourne in summer. Concert 2 of the 2025 series features the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with Jaime Martín (conductor) and Andrea Lam (piano).

•  Dvořák Symphony No.3
• Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
• Ravel Boléro

Free entry - no bookings required. Gates open at 5.30pm with entry on a first-in basis This performance will be live-streamed on YouTube.

Our rating - 5 Hats

The Sidney Myer free orchestral concerts at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl are one of the highlights of Melbourne in summer. Concert 2 of the 2025 series features the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with Benjamin Northey (conductor) and Reuben Tsang (piano).

• Klearhos Murphy Leventikos
• Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2
• James Henry Red Time
• Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Free entry - no bookings required. Gates open at 5.30pm with entry on a first-in basis. The main concert will be preceded by a curtain raiser by the Melbourne Youth Orchestra at 6pm featuring music by Dvořák, Prokofiev, John Williams and more.

Our rating - 5 Hats

White Hat can thoroughly recommend this vibrant seafood festival come street party. Enjoy mussels and other seafood cooked in a wide variety of ways all accompanied by one of Melbourne's best free jazz festivals. Street vendors combine with the market's own restaurants to provide plenty of variety from the cheap and cheerful through to chef-prepared restaurant dishes. Sit in the sun with a cold sangria and a hot mussel paella or enjoy a craft beer with wok cooked drunken mussels.

Details at Port Phillip Mussel Festival

Our rating - 4 Hats

Discover Scandinavia in Melbourne at the annual Scandinavian Christmas Bazaar in the beautiful gardens of the Swedish Church, Toorak. Festive atmosphere with stalls full of gorgeous items from Sweden, Denmark and Norway, especially imported for the Bazaar. Handicrafts, Scandinavian food, entertainment and lots of fun activities for the kids. Full information at Scandinavian Christmas Bazaar.

The Knox Festival is an annual free event with an emphasis on family-friendly activities. It features local artists and performers, markets stalls, rides, entertainment, cultural activities and plenty of food.

If you can only make it for part of the time, White Hat recommends the Saturday Evening Program from 5 until 9pm  where you can pay your respects to the Country Fire Authority Volunteers in their torchlight parade culminating in a fireworks display.

10am to 9pm Saturday 29th February 2020
10am to 5pm Sunday 1st March

Full details at Knox Festival.

The Australian Ballet School presents its much-loved end of year performance with over 100 of their full-time artists in training taking to stage to perform a program of classical and contemporary works.

Bookings on Arts Centre Melbourne website

Baz Luhrmann’s film comes to life on stage, remixed in a new musical mash-up extravaganza. A theatrical celebration of truth, beauty, freedom and - above all - love.

If you're into the more B grade, gory, splatter filled side of horror, The Melbourne Horror Film Society holds its traditional screenings bring syou BLOOD RITUAL. Held on the last Saturday of the month in conjunction with True North in Coburg, the blood letting begins when darkness descends, and with free entry and cheap beer in skulls, it's a night well worth selling your soul for. Information for each of our events on the MHFS website.

The Tony® and Olivier Award winning musical Come From Away tells the remarkable true story of thousands of stranded passengers and the small town in Newfoundland, Canada that welcomed them all.  Cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night, and gratitude grew into enduring friendships.

Full details and bookings on the Comedy Theatre website.

Opera Australia presents one of the most successful musicals of all time, in Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of The Opera to Melbourne.

Featuring well-known numbers such as Music of the Night, Think of Me, All I Ask of You and, of course the title song, Masquerade.

Full details and booking information at the Opera Australia website.

An artists' house museum - the former home and artists' studio of sculptor Karl Duldig (1902-1986) and his wife - artist and inventor Slawa Duldig née Horowitz (c1902-1975). Both artists fled the Nazis and ended up making a significant contribution to Australian life. You can read more about their remarkable background and the studio at Duldig Studio >>

The Heide Museum of Modern Art is a gallery, sculpture park and museum of important art and artists from Melbourne and beyond. White Hat recommends that anyone interested in Australian art, particularly that of the Heidelberg School, should pay a visit to this important site. More details at Heide Museum of Modern Art >>