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Yours & Owls Confirms Return For 2026

Mary Varvaris

"Gong Christmas" returns for another two-day music festival in the heart of Wollongong this October.

Yours & Owls Festival
Yours & Owls Festival(Credit: Ian Laidlaw)

Yours & Owls Festival will return in 2026, organisers confirmed today.

In a Save The Date email, it was announced that the Wollongong-based event would return for another two-day festival this spring: Saturday, 3 and Sunday, 4 October. While no venue has been announced, the event remains in its spiritual home of Wollongong.

“WE’RE BACK, BABY! WE’RE BACK! Gong Christmas returns Oct 3rd and 4th, 2026,” the email reads.

Punters can sign up for the mailing list for pre-sale details, with more information arriving soon. Yours & Owls remains a 16+ festival. Head to the event website for more information.

Last year’s Yours & Owls Festival took place in March, dates the organisers settled on after sharing that logistical issues, such as headliner availability, meant they wouldn’t be able to host or uphold the standard they usually would.

The 2025 festival was headlined by a string of diverse international talent, including Irish post-punk outfit Fontaines D.C., chameleonic rapper Denzel Curry, indie rockers The Kooks, and pop-rock band the Goo Goo Dolls.

Elsewhere, the line-up locked in Brad Cox, Courteeners, The Veronicas, Peach PRC, The Jungle Giants, Shame, Honey Dijon, JPEGMAFIA, MAY-A, Cyril, Keli Holiday, Magdalena Bay, and many others.

Last year’s event was held at the former military fort, Flagstaff Hill, which boasted 360-degree views of the Wollongong Harbour. From 2014 to 2021 – skipping 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – the festival was held at Stuart Park in Wollongong.

The 2023 event was then hosted at the University of Wollongong. Rather than host an October 2024 event, Yours & Owls took place last March at Flagstaff Hill for the first time.

In 2025, Yours & Owls became the first music festival in New South Wales to introduce pill testing. Additionally, it was the first festival in Australia to host a government-run test facility.

During the pill testing trial, punters were given the opportunity to test their drugs for potency and purity and chat with a counsellor. NSW Health reportedly tested 80 drug samples during the festival weekend.