The Greek Summer Festival returns to Carss Bush Park on 15 February 2026 with food, music, dance and fireworks by the bay.
By mid-morning, Carss Bush Park has already begun to change. The breeze off Kogarah Bay carries something richer than salt — the scent of oregano and charcoal, a sweetness of honey warming in oil. Families move across the grass with folding chairs and eskies, claiming small territories beneath fig trees. On the water, a few early kayakers drift past, glancing curiously toward the shoreline where the Greek Summer Festival is quietly taking shape.
Each February, the Greek Summer Festival transforms this stretch of bayside parkland into one of Sydney’s largest gatherings of Hellenic culture. What is ordinarily a place for dog walkers and afternoon picnics becomes, for a single Sunday, a meeting ground for music, memory and migration. Around 40,000 visitors are expected to pass through the gates this year, drawn by the promise of food, dance and a sense of belonging that extends well beyond heritage.
Morning Light At the Greek Summer Festival
The Greek Summer Festival begins at 10am on Sunday, 15 February 2026, but many arrive earlier, aware that the day rewards patience. As the DJ set opens the program, the first notes ripple across the lawns, settling into the rhythm of conversation and greeting. It is less a dramatic start than a gradual awakening.
More than 110 stalls line the pathways, creating a loose village within the park. Food vendors work steadily: skewers of souvlaki turned over open flames, trays of loukoumades lifted from oil and drenched in syrup, filo pastry layered with nuts and spice. The aromas mingle and drift, an edible map of regions stretching from Crete to Cyprus.
Alongside the food, artisan crafts and local businesses set out their wares — embroidered linens, olive-wood utensils, jewellery catching the light. The Greek Summer Festival is not simply a marketplace but a display of continuity. Many stallholders have returned year after year, their presence as familiar as the bay itself.
Music And Movement at the Greek Summer Festival
By late morning, the main stage gathers momentum. Stelios Daliardos and Tina Kokkalis take the microphone in turn, their voices carrying across the water. Children wander close to the speakers, curious and unselfconscious, while older attendees nod along to melodies they recognise from weddings and village festivals long past.
Throughout the afternoon, ten Greek dance troupes — including the Hellenic Lyceum, Pontian Association of NSW Pontoxeniteas, Cretan Association and Aristotelian Dance Academy — step into formation. Their costumes flash white and blue against the green of the park. Feet strike the stage in precise patterns; hands link in circles that tighten and release. The dances trace a geography of their own, each step rooted in a different island or mainland town.
At 2:30pm, international Greek singer Nikos Chatzopoulos is scheduled to perform, his appearance lending the Greek Summer Festival a note of occasion. Yet even as the crowd thickens, the atmosphere remains communal rather than distant. Performers gesture for the audience to join in, and it is not unusual to see a spontaneous chain of dancers form on the grass, strangers briefly united by rhythm.
As the day stretches on, Sophia Ventouris, Rallis and Sydney Greek Dancing schools bring the afternoon toward evening. Tina Kokkalis returns at 6:15pm for a second live set, before DJ Krazy Kon takes over at 7:30pm. The music shifts subtly, from traditional strains to contemporary beats, reflecting the layered identities of the community gathered here.
A Waterfront Setting for the Greek Summer Festival
Part of what distinguishes the Greek Summer Festival is its setting. Carss Bush Park, with its open lawns and gentle shoreline, offers a rare sense of space so close to the city. From certain angles, the Ferris wheel rises above the trees, its slow rotation mirrored in the bay below.
Families make a full day of it. Children dart between amusement rides and dedicated entertainment zones, clutching fairy floss or paper flags. Parents settle onto picnic rugs, unpacking containers of home-prepared food to supplement what has been purchased from the stalls. Some wander down to the water’s edge, shoes in hand, letting the tide cool their ankles before returning to the music.
The festival’s free entry encourages this ebb and flow. There is no rush to see everything at once. The Greek Summer Festival unfolds across eleven hours, from morning light to the edge of night, allowing visitors to experience it in fragments: a dance here, a meal there, a conversation that stretches unexpectedly long.
As sunset approaches, attention turns skyward. The fireworks finale, timed to close the festival at 9pm, casts brief constellations over the bay. Reflections tremble on the water’s surface, dissolving almost as quickly as they appear.
Community And Continuity
Sydney’s Greek community has long shaped the city’s cultural landscape, from inner-city cafés to suburban churches and schools. The Greek Summer Festival offers a visible expression of that influence, but it also invites participation from those without direct ties to Greece. On the grass at Carss Bush Park, languages overlap; accents soften; children translate for grandparents and then race off to join friends.
What lingers after the music fades is less spectacle than texture: the taste of honey and sesame, the echo of a bouzouki carried on the breeze, the feel of warm earth underfoot. The Greek Summer Festival, for all its scale, retains an intimacy born of shared memory and open space.
As darkness settles over the bay and the last of the stalls begin to pack away, Carss Bush Park slowly returns to itself. Yet traces remain — footprints in the grass, the faint scent of charcoal, the afterimage of fireworks against a summer sky. For a single Sunday, the park has held something of the Aegean. And by morning, the tide will have carried the sound away, leaving behind the quiet knowledge that it will return again next year.
Event Details
Where: Greek Summer Festival, Carss Bush Park, Carss Park NSW
When: Sunday, 15 February 2026, 10:00am–9:00pm
Entry: Free (onsite parking available)
Official Website: https://greeksummerfestival.com.au/