How to do Riverfire, and the best free things at Brisbane Festival

Brisbane Festival brings hundreds of performers to town, but this year random locals can also grab the limelight.

Visitors to the Festival Village in South Bank will find a forest of 32 microphones, a large karaoke screen, and a playlist of evergreen hits to sing, from Taylor Swift and Katy Perry to ABBA, Queen, Cold Chisel and yes, Dolly Parton too.

It’s the Giant Sing Along – a free installation by Canadian design studio Daily Tous Les Jours that invites passers-by to sing their hearts out.

“Unlike karaoke, you’re not alone performing in front of everybody. The crowd is the performer, and everybody gets a microphone because there’s so many,” said co-creator Mouna Andraos.

The machine operates for three-hour sessions most mornings and selected evenings during the festival, with a slight vocoder effect that helps crowds of strangers harmonise.

Andraos said the Giant Sing Along was the result of research into crowd behaviours.

“There’s science around how these moments of collective singing release happiness hormones in our brains and help us connect with each other,” she said.

“Our objective is to generate conversations between people, get strangers to connect and ultimately generate more trust within communities.”

The Giant Sing Along is one of many free events happening at the Festival Village in South Bank and at locations around the city. See below for the highlights.

Brisbane CBD, river and surrounds, Saturday, September 5, 4-8pm (flyover 4.45-5.30pm, fireworks 7pm)

Riverfire is now a more popular tradition in Brisbane than the New Year’s Eve fireworks, with an estimated half-million visitors to the city to watch the show.

The 15-minute display has more than 30 pyrotechnicians shooting several tonnes of fireworks into the air, preceded by ear-splitting Australian Defence Force (ADF) flyovers featuring C-17 Globemasters and F/A-18s.

Fireworks explode from bridges, rooftops and barges, with a sixth barge added to the network in 2026 directly between the Victoria Bridge and Neville Bonner Bridge, creating a bigger bang for the city centre.

Free viewing spots are at Festival Village, South Bank, Queen’s Wharf, Kangaroo Point Cliffs, City Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha Lookout, Highgate Hill Park, Captain Burke Park, Wilson Outlook Reserve and Howard Smith Wharves. Arriving early to reserve a spot is essential.