The Jannali Moonrise Festival returns on 7 November, bringing First Nations culture, live music and family activities to the streets of the Shire.
As afternoon settles over Jannali, the town centre will begin to take on a different rhythm. Box Road and the surrounding car park, usually part of the everyday movement of shops, errands and passing traffic, will become places to linger. Music will carry along the street, conversations will spill between market stalls, and families will move between performances, workshops and activities as the light gradually changes.
On Saturday 7 November 2026, the Jannali Moonrise Festival will return from 2pm to 8pm, inviting the community to gather around the stories, culture and connections that give this part of the Sutherland Shire its character.
The festival takes its name from the Aboriginal meaning of Jannali, understood as "place of the moon". That connection provides more than a theme for an afternoon of entertainment. It offers a starting point for thinking about place, cultural memory and the ways a community comes together to recognise the history that exists beneath its familiar streets.
Since its first edition in 2024, the Jannali Moonrise Festival has developed into an important date on the local calendar. Its return reflects an appetite for public celebrations that do more than fill a street with activity. At its heart is an opportunity to bring Aboriginal heritage into a contemporary community setting, while creating space for local artists, businesses, families and visitors to share the town centre.
This year's programme will spread across two festival precincts, with live music, cultural performances, market stalls, food, workshops and activities for different ages. The range is broad, but the underlying idea is simple: make the town centre a place people come to, rather than somewhere they merely pass through.
Jannali Moonrise Festival And The Meaning Of Place
The name Jannali gives the festival its sense of identity. Its association with the moon invites a different way of looking at the suburb, connecting the everyday landscape with a much longer cultural history.
Place names can hold stories that are not always visible in the built environment. They remain present in the language people use, even when the meaning behind them is less familiar to those who live nearby. The Jannali Moonrise Festival creates an occasion to bring that meaning into public conversation.
The event is proudly supported by Kurranulla Aboriginal Corporation, whose involvement reinforces the festival's role in recognising and promoting Aboriginal culture, heritage and community connections across the region.
For Kurranulla Aboriginal Corporation's Director and Elder, Aunt Deanna Schreiber, the gathering is an opportunity to connect the past with the present. She has described the festival as a way of bringing people together through culture, conversation and shared experiences, while strengthening connections to Country.
That emphasis matters. Cultural celebration is not simply a matter of presenting performances for an audience. It also involves creating opportunities for knowledge to be shared, for artists to be recognised and for local communities to engage with living culture.
First Nations artworks will form part of the festival, giving visitors the opportunity to encounter the work of Aboriginal artists and support their creative practice. The presence of these artworks adds another dimension to the day, moving beyond entertainment towards a more considered recognition of the people and stories connected to the region.
Stories And Songs Across The Town Centre
Music will provide much of the festival's movement and atmosphere. Performances across two spaces will bring together established local acts, emerging artists and cultural performers, giving the programme a distinctly community-based character.
Inspiration Dance and Como Physical Culture will contribute to the performance programme, while emerging artists Stephanie Pantazis and Summerset will bring their own work to the stage. Acoustic performer Rachel Tidbury will offer a more intimate musical presence, and First Nations musician Kevin Bennett will add an important cultural voice to the afternoon.
The variety of performers reflects the breadth of the local creative community. Rather than relying on a single headline act, the programme will move between different styles and forms of performance, giving visitors reasons to pause at each space as the afternoon unfolds.
As the event approaches evening, local favourites Just Mates Music will bring the celebrations to a close with an energetic final performance. Their appearance gives the day a natural ending, as the gathering shifts from the varied activity of the afternoon towards a shared musical finale.
Live music in a town centre has a particular quality. Without the formal distance of a dedicated concert venue, performers and audiences become part of the same public space. People may arrive intending to watch a particular act, while others stop because they hear a song carrying down the street. Children dance, friends meet unexpectedly and shopfronts become part of the backdrop.
That informal exchange is central to the character of the Jannali Moonrise Festival. Its programme is designed not only for those who plan their visit around performances, but also for people who discover something simply by being there.
Two Precincts, Two Sides Of The Celebration
The festival is arranged across two neighbouring spaces, each with its own character. Along Box Road, Moonrise Plaza will be the setting for the cultural ceremony, community performances, children's activities and interactive workshops. Across the way, the Jannali Town Centre Car Park becomes Sunset Square, with a live music stage, food trucks, artisan stalls, youth activities and a licensed area.
The layout encourages visitors to move between the two precincts rather than remain in one place. A family might spend time at a workshop in Moonrise Plaza before heading to Sunset Square for food and music. Others may come for a particular performance, then find themselves staying longer after discovering another part of the programme.
The First Nations Cultural Ceremony is an important part of the afternoon. Scheduled for 4pm on the Moonrise Stage, it gives the festival a moment to acknowledge the cultural significance of the place in which it takes place. Its position within a wider public programme also makes it an opportunity for visitors to listen and learn, not simply watch.
The event's cultural programme is supported by Kurranulla Aboriginal Corporation. That partnership helps keep First Nations culture and community connection central to the festival, even as the event welcomes a broad audience and a lively mix of activities.
A Festival For Young And Old
Children will find plenty to occupy their attention throughout the afternoon. The programme includes soft play, face painting, laser tag, mini golf, creative workshops, dance activities, magic and a silent disco. There will also be giant bubbles, balloon twisting and roving entertainment, bringing moments of surprise into the spaces between scheduled performances.
Bluey and Bingo are among the best-known visitors on the programme, with meet-and-greet sessions scheduled for 3.30pm and 4.30pm. Princess Elsa, Anna and Cinderella will also appear between 4.30pm and 5.15pm. These encounters are likely to be popular with younger children, so families may want to plan around the published times.
The workshops offer a quieter counterpoint to the more energetic attractions. Activities include cupcake and biscuit decorating, bracelet making, colouring and other hands-on creative experiences. They give children the chance to settle into something at their own pace, while parents and carers can share in the making rather than simply move from one attraction to the next.
For teenagers and older children, laser tag, mini golf and the silent disco provide a different kind of appeal. The silent disco, in particular, changes the usual relationship between music and public space. With headphones on, participants move to their own rhythm while the surrounding street carries on around them.
The programme is broad enough to accommodate different ages and interests, but its value lies in the shared setting. A family group does not need to agree on one activity for the whole afternoon. People can split up for a while, explore different parts of the festival and meet again when the music or the food brings them together.
Looking Up: The Moon And The Night Sky
The moon is more than a name in Jannali. It provides the idea around which the festival has been shaped, and the astronomy activities offer visitors a practical way to explore that connection.
The Sutherland Astronomical Society Inc. will present astronomy experiences, including solar gazing and educational activities. These sessions bring a scientific perspective to the festival's central theme, giving visitors a chance to learn about the sky through observation and conversation.
There is something fitting about an event that begins in the afternoon and continues towards dusk making room for astronomy. The changing light becomes part of the experience. As the sun lowers, attention can shift from the activity on the street to the wider sky above it.
The cultural meaning of Jannali and the scientific exploration of the heavens are distinct ways of understanding the world, and the festival brings them together within a shared public programme. The opportunity is not to flatten those perspectives into one, but to encourage curiosity about the place and the sky that gives the event its name.
For children, an astronomy activity can be a first encounter with the scale of the solar system or the practical work of observing the sun safely. For adults, it offers a reason to pause and look beyond the immediate activity of the town centre.
Local Businesses At The Heart Of Jannali
A festival that takes over a main street also changes the way people encounter the businesses around it. For the day, the town centre becomes both a destination and a meeting place, with local traders extending their hours, setting up outdoor activations and offering visitors additional reasons to explore.
The involvement of local businesses is an important part of the Jannali Moonrise Festival. Cafes, shops and other traders contribute to the atmosphere while giving the event a direct connection to the everyday commercial life of the suburb. Market stalls and artisan makers add another layer, allowing visitors to browse locally made goods and discover small businesses.
Food will be available through trucks and the dedicated licensed area at Sunset Square. This creates a natural place to stop between performances and activities, and gives the festival the relaxed rhythm of an outdoor gathering. Rather than treating food as a brief interval, visitors can make it part of the afternoon, finding a place to sit, talk and watch the activity around them.
For traders, the festival offers an opportunity to introduce their businesses to people who may not usually visit Jannali. For the community, it is a reminder that a town centre is shaped by more than its buildings and transport links. It is also made by the people who work there, the services they provide and the everyday encounters that take place across its streets.
The festival is supported by the NSW Government's Open Streets Program, led by Transport for NSW, in association with Sutherland Shire Council. The programme aims to help councils activate public streets and encourage people to spend time in local centres. Sutherland Shire Council has received $350,000 to deliver the event over three years.
That support reflects a wider interest in making main streets places to gather, not simply routes through a suburb. On festival day, the idea becomes tangible as Box Road shifts from its usual role into a pedestrian-focused setting for culture, music and community life.
Getting To The Jannali Moonrise Festival
Jannali is well connected by train, and the festival site sits directly across the road from Jannali Station. With road closures and restricted parking in place, public transport is the most practical option for many visitors.
Those travelling by car should allow extra time and be aware that parking is limited. Box Road, between Railway Crescent and Roberts Street, and Box Lane, between Box Road and the Jannali car park, are among the roads affected by closures. The upper section of the town centre car park will also be closed. Changed traffic conditions begin from 7am, with the listed road closures in effect from 9am until 11.59pm on Saturday 7 November.
Walking or cycling is another option for people coming from nearby neighbourhoods. Visitors who need accessible parking or other access information can check the council's event page before travelling.
The festival is free to attend, with activities and performances taking place between 2pm and 8pm. As with any large community event, it is worth allowing time to move between the precincts and checking the programme if there are particular performances or meet-and-greet sessions you would like to catch.
A Community Gathering Beneath The Moon
The Jannali Moonrise Festival brings together several strands of community life: local music, family entertainment, First Nations culture, small businesses and a shared interest in the place itself. Its programme is busy, but the event's larger purpose is found in the connections between those elements.
For Aunt Deanna Schreiber, the festival is a bridge between the stories of the past and the community of today. That idea gives the gathering its deeper significance. A public celebration can create an opening for people to encounter cultural knowledge, support Aboriginal artists and consider the heritage carried in the name of the suburb around them.
As the afternoon moves towards evening, the performances, food stalls and activities will continue to bring people into the streets. The final music will provide a lively close, but the memory of the day may be found in smaller moments: a child discovering something new at a workshop, a conversation beside an artwork, a familiar song shared with neighbours or a family looking up as the light begins to fade.
Jannali's connection to the moon offers a fitting thought to carry away. The festival is about more than one afternoon of entertainment. It is an invitation to recognise the stories held by a place, to make room for them in contemporary community life and to spend time together beneath the same changing sky.
Event Details
- Event: Jannali Moonrise Festival 2026
- Date: Saturday 7 November 2026
- Time: 2pm to 8pm
- Location: Box Road and Jannali Town Centre Car Park, Jannali NSW
- Precincts: Moonrise Plaza on Box Road and Sunset Square at the Town Centre Car Park
- Entry: Free
- Getting there: Jannali Station is directly across the road from the festival site. Walking, cycling and public transport are encouraged due to limited parking and road closures.
- Official information: Sutherland Shire Council – Jannali Moonrise Festival 2026