New Annual is a uniquely Newcastle festival.
This year's program is no exception.
It is informed by the city's coastline, its bustling central business district, and the many and varied talents of its people. It tells Newcastle stories in unexpected and loved locations, celebrating local creativity as well as new commissions from national and international artists.
In 2026 the festival also taps into some of Newcastle's known and lesser-known subcultures: its Pasifika communities; its swimmers; its experimental, DIY and industrial communities; and the punk, ska and pub-rock scenes that have shaped the city's musical identity.
There will also be a renewed focus on our natural environment, with Newcastle Ocean Baths and Nobbys and Dixon Park beaches being used as performance venues and exhibition spaces.
It's Tory Loudon's second year as New Annual festival director. She brings with her 20 years of experience in the arts, media and creative industries, and an enthusiasm for New Annual - and Newcastle itself - that is contagious.
"I'm really proud of the program," she tells Weekender.
"You can tell it is building on the success of last year. You can see the evolution."
The success of New Annual's SOAK: Live at the Baths last year left people wanting more. More than 9300 people attended free, family-friendly music events at the baths over four nights, with each night featuring a different performer and a unique approach to staging.
Tim Levinson (Urthboy) is again curating SOAK's music offering with Newcastle creatives Kat Skoumbas and Matt Field.
"There is already huge anticipation about how we are using the baths this year. Obviously SOAK is coming back, which is fantastic," Loudon says.
"But I'm super excited about what I'm calling a 'special edition': the one where, under the moonlight, with 400 women and allies, you can float in the baths and learn a choreographed routine by performance artist Latai Taumoepeau.
"It's a big Pasifika celebration of slowing down, being at one with nature, being together under the full moon ... I think it's a beautiful extension of how we're using the baths as a stage."
Tongan, Samoan and First Nations performers will perform at the Wansolmoana Lunar Assembly at Newcastle Ocean Baths at 7pm on September 28.
"I was surprised as a newcomer to Newcastle, swimming at the baths and thinking how magical it was, and wondering why it wasn't used as a theatre and a music venue," Loudon says.
"And then I realised why: because it took a lot of wrangling.
"We took the community on a journey with us. A lot of the regular users of the baths were a little bit nervous. Would they still be able to swim every day? We did a lot of reassuring that we wouldn't impede anyone's daily ritual.
"I think, though, that people are looking for those moments where they are part of something bigger, that's very connected."
Loudon is adamant New Annual is a festival for all Novocastrians as well as visitors to our city. She urges people not to write it off as "too arty" or somehow limited to creatives.
"Many aspects of the festival are grounded in local stories and they are for everyone; like Sea Stories, it's so beautiful," she says.
Sea Stories is a daily audio love letter to the ocean at Dixon Park beach. The idea is, you start your day at dawn, using headphones to listen to the stories of humans who consider the water part of their daily ritual.
Ros Oades collaborated with Janie Gibson to curate the stories.
"It's quite meditative, it's quite slow. You watch the sun rise over the ocean. It's about the joys of swimming, connection and community," Loudon says.
"There's a palliative nurse who talks about how she is terrified of the ocean but not of dying, and the ocean is like her medicine. It's what she throws herself into every single day.
"Someone else talks about grief, about how they lost their wife and how they go to the Bogey Hole, where a whole group of people meet there as a ritual - they have their own personal grief but they jump into the water together. It's a salve for them.
"They're really beautiful stories, and they couldn't be more Newcastle if we tried."
A free photography exhibition by Newcastle photographer Penny Green, Ocean Rituals, on the Dixon Park walkway, complements Sea Stories and its celebration of the ocean, surf and swimming.
Loudon says a QR code could have been used to enable passers-by to listen to the stories at any time, but that "wasn't the point".
"The point is, there's something about the ritual of coming together at one time, a ceremonial aspect, a sense of community. We hope people will then go to Sunnyboy Kiosk for a coffee and a chat about what they've just listened to," she explains.
"And we've designed it so you walk past Penny Green's beautiful photographs, and then you walk around to the Canoe Pool near Newcastle beach where you will find Izabela Pluta's gorgeous collection of buoys, Cavitation.
"And then you've got Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub doing beautiful dancing, all free, around Canoe Pool at eight in the morning as part of their new work, At Sea.
"We've got a whole beautiful morning planned for you. And, I love it how we top and tail it with dusk. Nan's Place at dusk, SOAK happening at dusk."
Nan's Place is a community-led celebration of local Indigenous culture led by Worimi Elder and artist Auntie Debbie Dates at Throsby Creek Foreshore on September 30, 4pm to 7pm, brought to life through the masterful puppetry of Curious Legends.
Then there are the events that explore Newcastle's various subcultures. On October 1, for example, Newcastle Museum will be hosting NM:PM: Loud, Proud & Punk from 6pm to 10pm.
"If you want to go deep into punk, if it's your thing, we have a night for you. And it's all ages," Loudon says.
"If I was a parent who had grown up listening to punk bands, I'd take my teenager to this. We've got zine making, badge making, a photography exhibition by Tony Mott capturing some amazing musos, plus a workshop; it's more than just music, it's about creativity as a whole.
"I really like giving people a chance to participate, because I believe everyone is creative."
As a case in point, Museum Park will host Melbourne-based collective Fast Fashun on Saturdays throughout New Annual 2026, where you are invited to transform discarded textiles into bold, wearable creations in one hour.
"I'll be taking part in this one. It's going to be a lot of fun," Loudon says.
"The outfit doesn't have to be beautiful, it just has to express you. We celebrate the fact that it's going to be imperfect and a bit messy. If you want to, you can go on the catwalk, but you don't have to.
"With this year's program, you can pick and choose how much you want to be involved. You can be a passive audience member or participate in a workshop. You can choose your own adventure."
Petite Suite is something new and different: seven rooms at The Oriental Hotel will be "transformed into little theatres". It's the first time Brand X, a non-profit arts organisation based in Sydney, has staged Petite Suite outside of Sydney.
"It's a bit of a lucky dip - each room is going to be a bit wild and wacky, a collaborative effort by local and national artists. I think it's going to be one of the gems of the festival," Loudon says.
For those interested in the quirkier side of Newcastle's history, Bizarre Newcastle at Tower Cinemas might be of interest.
"This is a brand new film which has been commissioned, exploring all the weird and wonderful myths about Newcastle ... like the time Little Richard had an epiphany on the Stockton Ferry and apparently saw God and threw his jewellery over the side of the ferry. There will also be performances by Steve Abbott, also known as The Sandman, Maynard and Christa Hughes," Loudon says.
She invited photographer Damien Frost, one of the founders of This Is Not Art in Newcastle, to return to the city from the UK for New Annual 2026. His exhibition, Night Flowers, will be staged at Watt Space Gallery throughout the festival.
"We've commissioned him to make new portraits of the local queer community [with local photographer Edwina Richards]," Loudon says.
"What's extraordinary about his work is that he goes into nightclubs and takes photos on the fly of people in beautiful and theatrical outfits. They're not staged.
"Damien will be here for five weeks, capturing people locally, and we'll be having a big art party that's attached to the exhibition, bringing it alive. We're encouraging people to get dressed up and lean into the theatricality of it all, to really go to town."
Frost will be at the Twisted: Night Flowers party at Bartholomew's on September 26.
"Returning to Newcastle is both a homecoming and a reconnection with a place that shaped my creative foundations," he says.
"The city remains deeply embedded in my sense of self, yet after nearly two decades living and working in London, it is encountered differently - reframed by time, distance, and experience.
"This exhibition brings that journey full circle, pairing new work with photographs made abroad, and returning them to the context that first informed their making. It creates a space to reconnect, to see anew, and to reflect on how identity, transformation, and self-expression shift and deepen when brought back to their point of origin."
Loudon has spent hours walking the city, looking at locations, talking to people, and letting her imagination run wild. She sounds excited about New Annual 2026, and I tell her so.
"I am, I really am. I'm proud of it and I hope everyone else loves it as much as I do," she replies.
"My team and I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to move people around the city, and what they can do.
"I'm quite used to the idea of thinking laterally, of thinking widely. The big difference with New Annual compared to other work I've done is that it is very grounded in community. It's a very collaborative festival and I get to use the city as a playground, and that, to me, is exciting."
She pauses before continuing.
"You know, I don't like it when festivals are described as a chocolate box, in that there's something for everyone. For me, New Annual is a celebration of Newcastle, of Newcastle creativity and Newcastle places.
"I don't think there's many things in the program that could happen elsewhere.
"We've got seven brand new commissions, new works that have never been seen before, and they are absolutely informed by Newcastle stories, Newcastle people and Newcastle places.
"Please don't think it's not for you. It really, really is."
