Avalon Groove Festival 2026 brings two days of live blues, soul, jazz and groove to Avalon Beach across the October long weekend, with music, food and the village itself part of the experience.
By early afternoon on a Northern Beaches long weekend, Avalon has a particular rhythm.
The surf is already in, or perhaps still being considered. People drift along Old Barrenjoey Road with beach bags, coffee cups and the unhurried confidence of those who know there is nowhere else they need to be. The village sits between the ocean and the green folds of the peninsula, compact enough to explore on foot and relaxed enough to make time feel slightly less urgent.
This is the setting for Avalon Groove Festival 2026, a two-day celebration of blues, groove and roots-oriented music taking place on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October.
Rather than setting up in a distant field, the festival makes its home in the centre of Avalon Village, inside the retro Avalon Cinema & Entertainment Centre at 37 Old Barrenjoey Road. The arrangement changes the character of the weekend. Music is at the centre, but the village remains close enough to step outside, find something to eat, wander towards the beach and return when the next set begins.
Across two days, a succession of Australian musicians moves through the auditorium, from the JLR Trio and Bilgola Benders on Saturday to Bek Jensen, George Washingmachine and Ray Beadle on Sunday.
The music begins at 1pm each day and continues into the evening, giving the festival a leisurely shape rather than the compressed feeling of trying to see everything at once.
Avalon Groove Festival 2026 Finds Its Setting
There is a natural connection between Avalon and a festival built around blues and groove.
The Northern Beaches has always attracted people looking for a little distance from the city without actually leaving Sydney. Avalon has retained enough of its village character to make that escape feel convincing. The cinema sits directly within that everyday landscape.
For the festival, the auditorium provides an enclosed listening space, while the surrounding village becomes part of the experience. Once attendees have their wristbands, they can come and go during the day, allowing the event to operate less like a sealed festival site and more like a musical thread running through an afternoon in Avalon.
That matters because the long weekend falls at the beginning of October, when spring has properly arrived and the coast starts to take on the lighter, more open character that Sydney's northern suburbs are known for.
A set can finish at 3.40pm, for example, leaving enough time to walk down the road, have a coffee, browse the village or head towards the water before returning for the next performance.
The festival's timetable has been designed with those intervals in mind. Sets generally run for 40 minutes, with breaks between performances for refreshments and a pause before the evening acts.
A Saturday Built Around The Groove
Saturday 3 October begins at 1pm with JLR Trio, setting the first musical tone of the weekend.
At 2pm, 2 Smooth + 2 takes over, followed at 3pm by That Old Chestnut. Red Herrings play at 4pm, before Bilgola Benders arrive at 5pm and Summer Rain at 6pm.
By this stage, the afternoon has begun to settle into evening. The 7pm set belongs to Chris Raggatt, before the day's final performance brings Rick Melick & the Self-Made Men to the stage at 8.30pm.
Melick's performance runs until 10pm and features special guest Liza Ohlback.
There is a pleasing progression to the day. The early sets allow audiences to settle into the room while there is still plenty of daylight outside. As the afternoon passes, the music becomes increasingly central to the evening, with the final performance providing a natural point at which to finish the first day.
For anyone familiar with the Northern Beaches, the timing also leaves room for the distinctive Avalon habit of moving between places rather than remaining in one for an entire day.
A festival wristband makes that possible here.
Avalon Groove Festival 2026 Moves Into Sunday
Sunday starts again at 1pm, this time with Tonita & Heath.
Stomp'n Ramblers follow at 2pm, with Gavin Libotte Trio at 3pm and Shamal at 4pm. At 5pm, The Lionel Robinson Experience takes the stage, leading into an evening programme that becomes progressively more prominent.
Bek Jensen performs at 6pm, followed at 7.30pm by jazz violinist George Washingmachine.
The final act of the festival is Ray Beadle, performing from 9pm until 11pm.
It is a fittingly late finish for a Sunday that has gradually moved from afternoon listening towards a more concentrated evening performance. Beadle, an award-winning Australian blues musician, provides the closing chapter after eight hours of music across the day.
By then, the streets outside will have changed considerably from the early afternoon. The beach crowd will have thinned, the light will have softened and Avalon will be settling into the slower rhythm of Sunday evening.
Inside the cinema, the festival will still be moving.
A Festival With Room To Wander
One of the more distinctive aspects of Avalon Groove Festival 2026 is its relationship with the village.
Many contemporary festivals are designed around the idea of remaining on site. Stages, food, bars and activities are concentrated inside a fenced area, and leaving can feel like stepping away from the event.
Avalon Groove takes the opposite approach.
The auditorium provides the musical anchor, but the ability to come and go means attendees can experience the festival as part of an afternoon or weekend in Avalon rather than as an isolated destination.
That opens up a different kind of day.
A morning at the beach can lead into an afternoon concert. A break between acts can become lunch in the village. A late afternoon can be spent walking through Avalon before returning for the evening programme.
For visitors coming from elsewhere in Sydney, it also means there is no need to treat the festival as a single-purpose journey.
The surroundings are part of the reason to make the trip.
Food, Drinks And The Balcony
Inside the venue, Love Food Kitchen operates the restaurant and lounge bar, providing food and drinks throughout the festival.
The offering includes large grazing boxes, with vegetarian and gluten-free options available, alongside additional dishes from the Love Food menu.
There is also an upstairs dining room and balcony area connected to the concert auditorium. Pre-paid food and drink packages provide access to these areas, creating an option for those who want to spend more of the day within the venue rather than heading back into the village between sets.
Drinks include wine, sparkling, beer, cocktails and soft drinks, with free water available.
For a festival running from 1pm into the evening, food becomes more than a practical detail. It helps determine the rhythm of the day. A meal between sets gives people a reason to pause, talk about what they have just heard and decide what they want to catch next.
The balcony adds another vantage point, looking back towards the activity around the auditorium.
It is a more social way of experiencing a music festival, one that allows conversation to exist alongside the performances rather than disappearing completely between them.
The Music Of The Northern Beaches
There is something appropriate about the number of local and Australian acts appearing across the weekend.
Avalon Groove Festival is not attempting to recreate a distant blues festival somewhere else. Its identity is tied to the musicians who make their homes, careers and audiences within Australia's live music landscape.
The presence of acts such as Bilgola Benders also gives the programme a geographical connection to the Northern Beaches itself. Other performers bring different strands of Australian blues, jazz, roots and groove into the room.
That mixture is important.
Blues can be treated as a fixed historical form, but live musicians continue to reshape it through jazz, soul, rock, rhythm and improvisation. A festival such as this can therefore feel less like a history lesson and more like a conversation between different generations and interpretations of the music.
George Washingmachine's jazz violin, for instance, occupies a different musical space from a traditional blues performance, while Bek Jensen and Ray Beadle bring their own established voices to the programme.
The result is a broad understanding of groove rather than a narrowly defined genre.
An October Weekend In Avalon
For visitors unfamiliar with the area, the appeal of the festival extends beyond the timetable.
Avalon Beach is one of those Sydney locations where the geography does much of the work. The village is close to the water, surrounded by bushland and residential streets, and sufficiently removed from the CBD to create a noticeable change of pace.
October is also a useful time to visit. Spring is underway, daylight lasts well into the evening and the Northern Beaches begin to take on their warmer-season character.
That makes the festival easy to combine with a broader day on the peninsula.
The key is not to over-plan it.
The timetable already provides a natural structure. Arrive for the early music, wander when the opportunity presents itself, return for the acts that matter most and allow the evening to develop at its own pace.
The ability to come and go encourages exactly that approach.
A Different Kind Of Festival Weekend
Avalon Groove Festival 2026 is ultimately less about spectacle than continuity.
For two days, music occupies a familiar building in the centre of a coastal village. The performances change every hour or so, the audience shifts throughout the afternoon, and people move between the auditorium, restaurant, balcony, streets and beach.
That creates a festival with a distinctly local scale.
There is no need for a huge expanse of land or an elaborate collection of stages. The cinema, the village and the coastline provide enough context.
The October long weekend gives the event an additional sense of occasion, but the appeal is quieter than that of a large city festival. It is about settling into an afternoon, hearing musicians play in a room, stepping outside into the spring air and returning when the next performance begins.
By Sunday night, Ray Beadle will take the stage at 9pm for the final two-hour set.
Outside, Avalon will be dark and comparatively quiet. Inside, the festival will still have its own pulse.
When the final notes fade at 11pm, the weekend will be over. The village will return to its ordinary rhythm, the auditorium will empty and the coastal roads will carry people home.
But for a couple of days, Avalon will have offered something Sydney does particularly well: a place where music, landscape and an unhurried afternoon can occupy the same space.
Event Details
Avalon Groove Festival 2026
Saturday 3 October to Sunday 4 October 2026
Avalon Cinema & Entertainment Centre
37 Old Barrenjoey Road
Avalon Beach, NSW 2107
Festival hours: 1pm to late each day
Saturday 3 October:
1pm JLR Trio
2pm 2 Smooth + 2
3pm That Old Chestnut
4pm Red Herrings
5pm Bilgola Benders
6pm Summer Rain
7pm Chris Raggatt
8.30pm Rick Melick & the Self-Made Men with special guest Liza Ohlback
10pm finish
Sunday 4 October:
1pm Tonita & Heath
2pm Stomp'n Ramblers
3pm Gavin Libotte Trio
4pm Shamal
5pm The Lionel Robinson Experience
6pm Bek Jensen
7.30pm George Washingmachine
9pm Ray Beadle
11pm finish
Running times are approximate and may be subject to change.
Official event and tickets: Avalon Groove Festival 2026 on TryBooking
Event information and timetable are based on the festival's published event details.