Midsumma 2027 slots at the Pride Centre are filling now, not in August

The Victorian Pride Centre is programming cabaret, comedy and theatre for next year's festival — and the real deadline is this week.

Told by Paige Turner · 3 September 2026

The Victorian Pride Centre wants your show for Midsumma 2027, and they're programming now.

Expressions of interest opened this week for performances and events at the St Kilda venue during next year's festival — Australia's premier queer arts and cultural event — and the Centre is looking for cabaret, comedy and theatre from a mix of emerging artists and established acts. Three spaces are on offer: the 100-seat Theatrette with stage, sound and lighting; the Forum, which holds 100 to 300 people; and the Rooftop, which can take 300-plus when the weather behaves.

Applications officially close Friday 16 August, but here's the thing: the venue is programming shows as they receive expressions of interest, so slots may fill up before then. Get in quick, they say, and they mean it.

The Centre wants performances that showcase pride, support, celebration and belonging — which is broad enough to be useful and specific enough to matter — and expressions of interest will be assessed on event viability and the diversity of the community. All decisions are final. The venue is fully accessible.

Last time Midsumma ran a call like this, the early birds got the prime slots and the latecomers got the apology email. This year, the same rule applies: the deadline is not the deadline, the deadline is now.

What the Centre is offering here is not just a stage. It's three stages, three capacities, three ways into the festival for artists who might not have the profile or the producer to land a marquee booking elsewhere. Emerging acts get the same sound system, the same accessibility, the same billing as the names everyone already knows, and that matters more than the Centre is saying out loud.

The viability test is the hard part — you need to prove the show can fill the room and pay for itself — but the diversity consideration is the open door, and it's there because Midsumma has spent years trying to be more than a parade of the usual faces doing the usual hour. If you're First Nations, a person of colour, disabled, neurodivergent, trans, from the outer suburbs or just sick of waiting for someone to notice you, this is the call that was written for you.