Kiama Jazz And Blues Festival 2027 marks 40 years of live music from 5 to 7 March, bringing jazz, blues and more to venues across the South Coast.
On a Friday afternoon in Kiama, the Pacific is never far away.
The sound of the water is part of the town's everyday rhythm. Gulls move above the harbour, surfers watch the swell at Surf Beach and people drift along Terralong Street with coffee, shopping bags or nowhere in particular to be.
Then, as evening approaches, another sound begins to spread through town.
A saxophone might be coming from a church. A guitar may be carrying across a park. Somewhere near the water, a bass line starts to settle into the evening. In a cafe, restaurant or bar, a small audience gathers around a performer.
For three days in March 2027, that transformation will happen again when the Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival returns for its 40th anniversary.
The festival will run from Friday 5 March to Sunday 7 March 2027, with music presented across multiple venues in Kiama, as well as Gerringong and Minnamurra. The detailed 2027 programme and individual performance times are still to be announced.
Forty years is a significant milestone for a regional music festival. Yet the character of the Kiama event has never depended entirely on its size. Its identity has been shaped by something more local: the decision to bring musicians into the places where people already live, eat, meet and spend time.
Kiama Jazz And Blues Festival Grows From The Town
The story began with Dennis Cox, a South African jazz enthusiast and creative arts teacher who worked at Kiama High School. Cox formed a jazz club with friends, organising performances that gradually developed into the festival now known as the Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival.
Four decades later, the event remains volunteer-run and community supported. The festival describes itself as grassroots and not-for-profit, with a focus on original music, emerging artists and curious audiences.
That history gives the festival a different relationship with its host town.
It is not simply a temporary event brought into Kiama for a weekend. Local businesses become venues. Churches, cafes, restaurants, bars, parks, shops and community spaces can all become part of the programme.
The effect is subtle but important. Instead of entering a festival precinct and staying there, visitors are encouraged to move through Kiama itself.
The town becomes the venue.
Forty Years Of The Kiama Jazz And Blues Festival
The 40th anniversary gives the 2027 festival a particular significance.
The organisers have announced the dates as Friday 5 March, Saturday 6 March and Sunday 7 March, inviting venues and performers to become part of a weekend intended to fill the spaces and places of the coastal town with music.
There is also an openness about what the festival considers jazz and blues.
The organisers describe jazz and blues as its roots rather than its boundaries, welcoming soul, funk, folk, electronica, improvisation and music that sits somewhere between established categories.
That approach reflects something fundamental about live music.
Genres are useful for describing a record collection, but less useful when a musician is standing in front of an audience. A jazz trio can move towards soul. A blues guitarist can lean into rock. An electronic musician can work with improvisation. A folk singer can find an audience among jazz listeners.
The festival's programme has room for those crossings.
For its 40th anniversary, that philosophy will provide a link between the event's history and whatever comes next.
Music In Unexpected Places
One of the most distinctive aspects of the Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival is its relationship with ordinary spaces.
Previous festival programmes have included performances at the Kiama Uniting Church, Kiama Surf Lifesaving Club, Coronation Park, cafes, restaurants, shops and other community locations. The 2025 festival also extended into Gerringong and Minnamurra.
The Uniting Church has served as the festival's jazz hub, while the Kiama Surf Lifesaving Club has provided a home for blues performances beside Surf Beach. Coronation Park, meanwhile, has offered an informal outdoor setting where audiences can bring a rug, settle on the grass and listen to free performances.
These locations change the way music is heard.
Inside a church, the architecture becomes part of the experience. At a surf club, the ocean is close enough to shape the atmosphere. In a park, children can wander and people can come and go without the formality of a concert hall.
The music remains central, but the setting adds another instrument to the performance.
Kiama Jazz And Blues Festival Beyond The Stage
A festival spread through a town creates a particular kind of weekend.
A visitor might begin with breakfast before finding a morning performance. Later, they might walk towards the harbour, stop for lunch and discover another musician playing nearby. An afternoon performance could lead to a drink at a local bar, followed by an evening set in one of the festival's ticketed venues.
There is no need to follow a single path.
That flexibility has been part of the festival's structure. In 2025, many performances around Kiama were free, while weekend and day passes provided access to selected venues and curated experiences. The festival encouraged visitors to support the local businesses that host and contribute to the event.
For a regional town, this relationship is significant.
Music brings visitors, but the benefits do not stop at the venue door. Cafes, restaurants, accommodation providers, shops and other businesses become part of the weekend.
The result is closer to a town-wide cultural gathering than a conventional music festival.
The South Coast Becomes Part Of The Experience
Kiama is an unusually well suited place for this kind of event.
The town sits on the South Coast, between Sydney and the Southern Highlands, with the Pacific forming a constant presence along its eastern edge. The coastline is dramatic without being remote, while the town centre remains compact enough to explore on foot.
There is the harbour, Surf Beach, the famous blowhole and the surrounding coastal landscape, but also the smaller details that become noticeable when walking between performances: weathered shopfronts, sea air, old buildings and the changing light across the water.
That sense of place is central to the festival's identity.
Music does not arrive in isolation. It is framed by the coast.
For visitors travelling from Sydney, the journey itself can become part of the weekend. The city gradually gives way to smaller towns and wider stretches of road before Kiama's coastal landscape appears.
By the time the first notes are heard, the pace has already changed.
A Festival Built Around Musicians
The organisers place considerable emphasis on the musicians themselves.
Artists are selected through an application process and the festival states that performers are paid properly. Its stated focus is on original and interesting music, as well as discovering artists audiences may not have encountered before.
That philosophy gives the event a sense of discovery.
There is always a certain pleasure in seeing an artist whose name means little before a performance and finding, afterwards, that the music has stayed with you.
The festival also looks for ways to give musicians more than one opportunity to perform. Its organisers note that, where possible, artists can appear across different stages and spaces, sometimes presenting different versions of the same band.
For performers, that can mean adapting to different rooms and audiences. For visitors, it can offer the chance to encounter the same musicians in contrasting settings.
The quiet intimacy of a small venue and the openness of an outdoor stage ask different things of a performer.
Both can reveal something new.
What To Expect In March 2027
The full artist programme for the 40th anniversary festival has not yet been announced, so visitors will need to wait for individual artist names, venue schedules, ticket information and performance times.
What is already clear is the shape of the weekend.
The festival will take place across three days from 5 to 7 March 2027, with multiple venues in Kiama, Gerringong and Minnamurra. The organisers are currently inviting artists and venues to participate in the anniversary programme.
That means the final festival map is still being created.
It also means there is an opportunity for the 40th anniversary to remain faithful to the event's original character while making room for new sounds.
The organisers' description of the festival as a place where jazz and blues are roots rather than boundaries is perhaps the clearest indication of what visitors can expect.
There will be familiar territory, but not necessarily predictable music.
Planning A Kiama Jazz And Blues Festival Weekend
For anyone planning to attend, accommodation will be worth considering early once the programme and ticketing arrangements are released.
The festival's venues are distributed across Kiama and neighbouring communities, so staying locally can make it easier to move between performances without relying on a single timetable.
The town also rewards walking. Rather than treating the festival as a sequence of isolated shows, visitors can allow time between performances to explore the coastline, eat locally and see where the next sound is coming from.
Exact 2027 venue schedules and performance times should be checked through the official festival website as they are released.
The festival's previous model also means that not every musical experience necessarily requires a ticket. Free community performances have formed an important part of past programmes, alongside ticketed performances and pass-only venues.
The balance allows the weekend to remain accessible while supporting the musicians and venues at its centre.
When The Music Meets The Sea
By Sunday afternoon, a music festival can begin to feel slightly different.
The anticipation of Friday has disappeared. Saturday's crowds have passed through town. Musicians and audiences have settled into the rhythm of the weekend.
There is less urgency.
Perhaps that is when Kiama makes the greatest impression.
A song carries across a park. Someone stops walking to listen. A few people sit on a bench facing the water. From somewhere nearby comes the sound of a trumpet, guitar or voice.
The Pacific continues moving beyond it all.
For 40 years, the Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival has found ways to bring live music
Event Details
Event: Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival 2027
Dates: Friday 5 March to Sunday 7 March 2027
Times: Individual performance times to be announced
Location: Multiple venues across Kiama, Gerringong and Minnamurra, NSW
Anniversary: 40th anniversary
Programme: To be announced
Official Website: Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival