Weddings, dark energy, psychedelics, krill parties and cold case forensics take over Tasmania this winter
This August, Beaker Street Festival returns to transform Nipaluna/Hobart and beyond into a laboratory of ideas, connection and controlled chaos, unveiling a bold 10th anniversary program built around the theme of “The Second Act.”
Running 6-17 August 2026, the Festival will bring together scientists, artists, musicians, cultural leaders, storytellers and curious humans for more than 70 events spanning theatres, museums, pubs, mountain tops, saunas, galleries and dark skies across Lutruwita/Tasmania.
At a moment when technology is reshaping nearly every aspect of human life, this year’s Festival asks a timely question: what comes next?
“For ten years, Beaker Street has created events and spaces where science becomes the catalyst for great conversations, new ideas and shared experiences,” says Founder and Creative Director Dr Margo Adler. “This year’s theme, The Second Act, is about reinvention. It’s about taking stock of who we are, what we value, and how we stay connected to each other in a world increasingly designed to pull us apart.”
“Science is not only about racing towards the next breakthrough,” Adler says. “It is also about taking stock of the world around us, reconnecting with nature and each other, learning from ancient knowledge systems, and rediscovering what makes us human.”
The 2026 program moves from debates and exposés about social media, addictive tech products, and artificial intelligence to immersive First Nations sky stories and dinners, expert-led fermentation workshops, slime mould exhibitions, Antarctic parties, dark-energy concerts and even a real wedding.
And yes, there will be cake.
MAIN STAGE: BIG QUESTIONS, BIGGER PERSONALITIES
Beaker Street’s flagship Main Stage program returns to Hobart City Hall for a packed weekend of headline conversations, performances and beautifully nerdy spectacle.
Australia’s favourite science communicator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki returns for live shows in Hobart and Burnie, while Natasha Mitchell once again hosts The Beaker Street Debate, this year tackling the gloriously provocative question: should Australia’s social media ban extend to adults too?
The Festival also dives headfirst into humanity’s increasingly complicated relationship with technology. Meet Your Replacement: An AI Demo offers a live look at the tools rapidly reshaping work and creativity, while Can’t Look Away unpacks how tech companies use psychology, behavioural science and gambling-industry tactics to keep us scrolling.
Reset.tech Australia policy director Dr Rys Farthing joins leading human-computer interaction researcher Dr Meredith Castles and tech reporter Vanessa Toholka to unpack the growing global backlash against addictive platform design.
Elsewhere, Psychedelics Revisited explores the remarkable return of psychedelic-assisted therapy, featuring Monash University Clinical Psychedelics Lab head Dr Paul Liknaitzky alongside a participant from one of his research group’s recent psychedelic therapy trials.
Hosted by Radio National’s Tegan Taylor, audiences will hear first-hand what psychedelic-assisted treatment can actually feel like, as researchers and participants discuss the emerging science, the emotional experience, and the future of psychedelic medicine in Australia.
Then there’s SexTistics, where “Kinky History” sensation Dr Esmé Louise James and mathematician mum Dr Susan James combine sex history, statistics and data from more than 11,000 people worldwide for a revealing and hilarious deep dive into modern intimacy.
Meanwhile, Murder on Beaker Street: The Science of True Crime sees Tasmania’s forensic scientists pull back the curtain on how real criminal investigations actually work, from DNA analysis to cold case breakthroughs, with host Marta Dusseldorp.
And in perhaps the most delightfully Beaker Street event ever staged, audiences are invited to attend The Second Act: A Wedding, where audiences witness the real marriage of beloved ABC Hobart breakfast presenter Ryk Goddard to Mylinda Purtell, framed by conversations about neuroplasticity, reinvention and second chances, and followed of course by a lively wedding reception.
“It felt fitting for Beaker Street Festival’s 10th anniversary to celebrate in style, where audiences can be part of a Main Stage event marrying neuroscience and nuptials, then let loose on the dance floor with the happy couple,” Adler says.
VAST: A DARK ENERGY SOUND SPECTACLE
One of the Festival’s centrepieces is VAST, a groundbreaking world-premiere performance transforming Hobart’s historic Theatre Royal into an immersive 360-degree sound universe.
Created for Beaker Street Festival and the Theatre Royal by Tasmanian composer Constantine Koukias and Dutch sound designer Willem van Erven Dorens, VAST is inspired by Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Professor Brian Schmidt’s research into dark energy and the discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.
The ambitious production translates one of modern science’s greatest mysteries into a live sonic experience, with more than 120 recorded voices and 80 instrumentalists breaking apart into swirling sonic “particles” that move through the theatre in real time.
Featuring an international ensemble of musicians and vocalists, no two audience members will hear exactly the same performance.
A companion event, VAST: In Conversation, will see Koukias joined by Professor Brian Schmidt, whose Nobel Prize-winning research inspired VAST, to explore the science and creative process behind the production.
SCIENCE IN THE WILD
Beyond theatres and bars, Beaker Street once again sends audiences out into Tasmania’s landscapes for a program of immersive field trips and workshops.
Festival-goers can experience traditional Finnish sauna healing from Finland-trained “Sauna Queen of Tasmania” Nanna Bayer inside a handcrafted clay-and-straw sauna hidden in South Hobart.
Participants can discover the hidden world of bats with chiropterologist Dr Lisa Cawthen, head underground into a disused railway tunnel with mushroom farmer Dean Smith, or spend a full day fermenting, baking and tasting at Launceston’s new FermentHQ facility.
In North West Tasmania, astrophysicist Dr Kirsten Banks will guide audiences through Indigenous astronomy beneath the dark skies of Mount Gnomon Farm, blending contemporary astrophysics with First Nations perspectives on the cosmos.
Dr Banks will also take part in Beaker Street Festival’s iconic Dark Sky Dinner at Frogmore Creek Winery, joined by Pakana woman and UTAS Senior Indigenous Scholar Theresa Sainty and astrophysicist Professor Brian Schmidt. Attendees will enjoy talks by the three luminaries over a sit-down dinner, then head outside for live music and telescopes with the Astronomical Society of Tasmania.
FIRST NATIONS KNOWLEDGE AND CONNECTION TO COUNTRY
More First Nations-led programming than ever before forms a major part of the 2026 Festival.
On Kunanyi / Mount Wellington, Theresa Sainty leads Wurangkili Liwari Nipaluna, sharing stories of Palawa sky knowledge and uninterrupted connection to Country beneath the winter stars, alongside astrophotographers Luke Tscharke and Andrew Phipps
Elsewhere, Connecting to Country invites participants to slow down and re-engage their senses on guided walks through the Waterworks Reserve, while Taste of Country offers an immersive cultural and culinary experience at Piyura Kitina / Risdon Cove with Palawa Kipli’s Kitana Mansell.
HOBARTICA RETURNS, AND SO DOES THE KRILL PARTY
Hobartica returns to Hobart’s waterfront, transforming Mawson Place into an immersive Antarctic playground filled with polar encounters, music, art, science, installations and gloriously eccentric late-night experiences.
At its centre is the returning Opening Night Krill Party, first introduced last year and immediately becoming one of the Festival’s cult hits. Expect kriller costumes, krill karaoke, Antarctic absurdity and a full-scale celebration of one of the planet’s tiniest but most important creatures.
The full Hobartica program of largely free events across Mawson Place and the waterfront, including an Antarctic Night Market and polar encounters inside geodesic domes, will be announced closer to the Festival.
SCIENTISTS, PUBS AND CONTROLLED CHAOS
The iconic Roving Scientist Bar returns to the Hope & Anchor Hotel, putting scientists at every table for conversations ranging from exoplanets to dung beetles.
Meanwhile, TMAG After Dark once again opens up the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery after hours for microscopes, collections, scientists and live music.
Throughout the program, Beaker Street continues its mission of building community through scientific understanding, creating spaces where strangers become collaborators, difficult ideas can be explored together, and science spills out of laboratories and lecture theatres and into real life.
BEAKER STREET FESTIVAL 2026
Dates: 6–17 August 2026
Location: Nipaluna/Hobart and across Lutruwita/Tasmania
Full program and tickets: www.beakerstreet.com.au