Sydney’s Northern Beaches will welcome a new major live event in 2027, with Wolfmother, Ball Park Music and Yothu Yindi confirmed to headline the inaugural Aloha Festival.
The all-ages celebration of music, surfing and coastal culture will be staged at Dee Why Beach on March 6, 2027. Dune Rats, The Terrys, The Beautiful Girls, Mid Drift and The Beefs complete the announced live lineup.
Aloha Festival will accommodate up to 15,000 people. Organizers say the event has the potential to become the largest music festival ever held on the Northern Beaches and the region’s biggest in more than two decades.
General tickets go on sale Monday, Oct. 26 at 10 a.m. AEDT, following a presale beginning Oct. 23.
Surf Films Will Share the Main Stage
The program extends beyond live performances. Curated surf films will be shown on the main stage between sets in what is being billed as a first-of-its-kind festival feature.
The screenings will include works by John Florence, Jack Johnson and Stacy Peralta, with several of the films digitally remastered in 4K.
Organizers are also building the event around community programs addressing shark education, ocean safety, environmental sustainability and mental wellbeing. First Nations and Hawaiian culture will be represented across the festival’s initiatives.
Among those projects is Bush to Beach, a program intended to give First Nations youth their first experience at a festival.
Aloha Festival will additionally pay tribute to Hawaiian waterman Duke Kahanamoku, who helped introduce surfing to Australia at nearby Freshwater Beach in 1914. That historical connection places the event’s Hawaiian theme within the coastal history of the surrounding area.
Festival founder and Long Reef local Luke Campbell described the gathering as an opportunity for different generations to reconnect through the area’s coastal identity.
“Aloha Festival is a celebration of everything that makes the Northern Beaches, and the Australian coastline, so special,” Campbell said. “Our community has been rocked in recent times, and we want to create an event where everyone from 5-year-olds to 85-year-olds can come together, connect and share the spirit of Aloha.”
Three Generations of Australian Rock
The three headliners bring together different generations of Australian music.
Wolfmother, fronted by Andrew Stockdale, broke through with the band’s five-times-platinum self-titled debut in 2005. The album reached No. 22 on the Billboard 200, while “Woman” climbed to No. 7 on the Mainstream Rock chart and won the 2007 Grammy for best hard rock performance.
Yothu Yindi made chart history with the 1991 song “Treaty,” which became the first track by a predominantly Aboriginal band to chart in Australia. It reached the ARIA top 20 and rose to No. 6 on Billboard’s Dance Club Play chart. The group was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2012.
Brisbane indie-pop act Ball Park Music has earned multiple top-five albums on the ARIA chart, including its chart-topping 2020 release, Ball Park Music.
The remaining bill broadens the Australian lineup, with Dune Rats appearing alongside The Terrys, The Beautiful Girls, Mid Drift and The Beefs.
ShowBiz Take
Aloha Festival’s significance lies in the breadth of its planned debut. Rather than separating music, film and community programming, organizers are putting all three at the center of a beachside event designed for audiences ranging from young children to older festivalgoers.
The pairing of established headliners with surf cinema, cultural initiatives and coastal education gives Aloha Festival an identity beyond a conventional concert bill. Its proposed capacity also makes the launch particularly notable for the Northern Beaches, where organizers believe it could set a new benchmark for a music festival in the region.
The tribute to Duke Kahanamoku and the focus on First Nations and Hawaiian culture further connect the program to the history and communities represented by the event, while the Bush to Beach initiative adds a direct participation component.
What Happens Next?
The first opportunity to secure tickets arrives with the Oct. 23 presale. General sales will follow at 10 a.m. AEDT on Monday, Oct. 26, ahead of Aloha Festival’s March 6, 2027 debut at Dee Why Beach.