Melbourne Big Events

Melbourne has a huge festival culture with big events like the Australian Open tennis tournaments, comedy festivals, fashion festivals and writer’s festivals. We bring you the dates and the details so you can schedule your holiday to catch all the action.

Australian Open Tennis Championships

The first tennis Grand Slam of the year takes place in Melbourne, with the cream of international tennis slugging it out on centre court for the year’s first coveted trophy.
One of summer’s biggest sporting events, the Australian Open Tennis takes place at Melbourne Park from mid-January. Tournament attractions also include the popular Legends events, which sees the great names of the past back in action, and the Junior event where the stars of tomorrow get an early taste of the Grand Slam experience. Night matches attract some of the biggest buzz for the world-class tennis event, with some of Australia’s top bands performing on stage in Garden Square before the battle after dark hots up under the world’s first retractable rolling roof.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Australians are known for their fabulous sense of humour, and you’ll experience the best of it during Melbourne’s International Comedy Festival. One of the three largest comedy festivals in the world, the comedy extravaganza takes place every autumn, with a huge program of stand up comedy, cabaret, theatre and street performance throughout the city of Melbourne.
Signature events include the Gala evening with a star-studded line-up of local and overseas comics and the Raw Comedy quest – Australia’s national search for rising comedy stars

FORMULA 1 Foster's Australian Grand Prix

Bring your earplugs, or brave the deafening roar of engines, as Melbourne hosts one of the most popular rounds of the FIA World Championship in late March/early April. The city’s streets around Albert Park Lake are transformed to create The Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit, where Formula 1 greats race flat out across the 5.3 kilometre track. For F1 fanatics travelling to Melbourne especially for the Foster’s Australian Grand Prix, special ticket promotions include the Four Corner Grandstand package, which lets you view racing from the four grandstands over the four-day event.

Spring Racing Carnival

For six glorious weeks, Melbourne bubbles over with champagne, parties, fashion and horse racing for the year’s most exciting spring festival. Feel the adrenaline as the world’s finest thoroughbreds hit the turf for hallmark race days like Cox Plate, Victoria Derby, Oaks Day and
the race that stops the nation on the first Tuesday in November – The Melbourne Cup. International celebrities also head to Melbourne during October and November to lap up the party atmosphere and frock up for the famous fashions on the field. Past guests include Eva Longoria (star of Desperate Houswives), gay fashion guru Carson Cressley and tinsel town’s paparazzi princesses – the Hilton sisters