In this story
- Who Is Playing at the Australian Grand Prix 2027?
- The 2027 Lakeside Festival Lineup and Set Times
- What to Expect: How the AGP Entertainment Works
- Who Has Headlined the Australian Grand Prix?
- Beyond the Main Stage: Precincts and Daytime Entertainment
- Race Week Beyond the Gates
- Planning Around the Entertainment
- Frequently Asked Questions
When the chequered flag falls at Albert Park each evening, the day isn’t over. It’s just changing gear. The Lakeside Festival kicks in, the circuit turns into a waterfront concert venue, and it’s all included in your ticket. No separate booking, no extra cost, just a change of pace once the cars are back in the garage, and thousands of people who were watching Formula 1 an hour earlier now watching a headline act instead.
It’s easy to underestimate how big this side of the weekend has become. What started as a modest post-session concert has grown into a genuine multi-night festival, with international headliners now booked specifically for the Grand Prix rather than tacked onto an existing Australian tour. Here’s what the Lakeside Festival actually is, who’s played it before, when lineups tend to drop, and how to plan your race weekend around it.
Who Is Playing at the Australian Grand Prix 2027?
The 2027 Lakeside Festival lineup hasn’t been announced yet. Based on the last two years, expect it roughly four weeks out from the race. The 2026 lineup was revealed in the first week of February, with a second wave of Australian acts added later that month, and the 2025 lineup was announced on 11 February. Early-to-mid February is the window worth watching, and it’s worth checking back more than once.
It’s also worth knowing that announcements tend to arrive in waves rather than all at once. Headliners usually get confirmed first, generating the initial round of coverage. Supporting acts, exact stage times and any additional programming often follow a week or two later, sometimes closer to the race itself than fans expect. Don’t assume the first announcement is the complete lineup, since some of the best homegrown acts in recent years have been added in that second wave rather than the initial reveal. In 2026, Thursday’s entire bill arrived that way, turning a three-night festival into a four-night one.
One thing you can bank on regardless of who plays: the concerts are included free with any valid ticket to the race weekend, Park Pass included. There’s no separate concert ticket to buy, and there never has been, which is worth knowing if you’ve come across other events where the headline act costs extra on top of general admission.
The 2027 Lakeside Festival Lineup and Set Times
The 2027 lineup and set times haven’t been announced yet. See What to Expect below for everything you need to plan your weekend regardless of who ends up on the bill.
What to Expect: How the AGP Entertainment Works
The Lakeside Festival is the anchor of race week nights. It runs on the Main Stage in the Lakeside precinct, just behind the Brabham grandstand and close to the main paddock, with music starting once track action wraps up for the day. If you’re sitting in a grandstand north of the lake, the floating bridge gets you across to the festival side quickly, so you don’t need to plan a long walk into your evening after a full day trackside.
The access model is the whole point: concerts are free with any valid event ticket, including general admission Park Passes. Nobody buys a separate ticket to see the headliner, and there’s no premium tier of access required just to be in the crowd. Premium viewing options do exist for those who want them, usually tied to a specific sponsor partnership, but they sit on top of the free access rather than replacing it, so nobody’s shut out of the festival itself over ticket type.
The lineup usually splits into two tiers. Sunday is consistently reserved for a headline international act, closing out the weekend after the race itself. The rest of the bill varies year to year: 2025 leaned heavily Australian across Friday and Saturday, while 2026 booked international headliners on three of the four nights. Australian acts fill out the supporting slots and the earlier evenings, giving local talent a genuinely major stage rather than a token opening slot. In 2026, that meant four full nights of music across the whole Thursday-to-Sunday event, a step up from the three-night format of earlier years, and a sign of how much the festival side of the weekend keeps growing alongside the racing itself.
Timing is worth keeping in mind too. Music typically starts not long after the day’s on-track sessions wrap up, so there’s little downtime between watching the cars and finding your spot for the concert. Exact set times get confirmed alongside each year’s lineup, usually with the full day-by-day schedule following the initial headliner announcement, so it’s worth checking back once the names are out rather than assuming times straight away.
Sponsor partnerships tend to add an extra layer on top of the free access, rather than replace it. The festival’s presenting partner and even its name have changed as it has grown: it ran simply as the Crown Main Stage in 2024, became the Crown Lakeside Festival in 2025, and in 2026 was the Lakeside Festival Presented by American Express, which brought a three-storey terrace and a dedicated viewing area at the front of the stage for card members. These add-ons vary from year to year depending on who’s presenting the festival, so it’s worth checking the official event guide closer to the date if a premium viewing spot matters to you, but they’re never a requirement to attend, and the standard festival experience has never been anything less than free entry with your race ticket.
Who Has Headlined the Australian Grand Prix?
Past lineups are the best guide to what’s coming, so here’s the recent run. It’s worth reading this table as a trend rather than a static list. The calibre of acts, and the scale of the production around them, has grown noticeably year on year.
| Year | Headliners | Notable support |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Rita Ora, Duke Dumont, Basement Jaxx (DJ set) | Rogue Traders, SHOUSE, Mallrat, Logic1000, dameeeela |
| 2025 | Fatboy Slim, Tones and I, Baker Boy | The Living End, Spiderbait, Anna Lunoe |
| 2024 | Amy Shark, Jet, Empire of the Sun (DJ set) | The Presets, Northeast Party House, Vanessa Amorosi, Yo! Mafia, Jake Webb, Emma Peters |
Both 2025 and 2026 mixed a genuine international drawcard with strong homegrown support, a formula that looks set to continue. If the trend holds, expect the 2027 lineup to lean the same way: at least one international headline act, paired with a strong bench of Australian talent across the earlier nights.
Beyond the Main Stage: Precincts and Daytime Entertainment
The Lakeside Festival is only part of the programme. Melbourne Junction hosts the Melbourne Walk, where drivers arrive before each session, plus Fan Forum sessions with drivers and team principals. It’s one of the few chances all weekend to see drivers up close outside the car, without a helmet or a pit wall in the way. The Fan Forum Stage is free to all ticketholders, the same as the festival itself. Pit Stop Park is built for families, with interactive and STEM-style zones aimed at younger fans who might need a break from grandstand seating. Motorsport Straight puts you close to the support-category paddocks, useful if you’re the kind of fan who wants to see the cars up close between sessions rather than only from a seat.
The support racing itself is worth building time around too. Multi-class racing runs across all four days, so there’s genuine track action even during the sessions that aren’t Formula 1. Thursday in particular has become a bigger draw than it once was, with support categories filling the day and setting up the festival’s opening night. For the full breakdown of where each precinct sits on the circuit, see our Albert Park Circuit Guide.
Race Week Beyond the Gates
The entertainment doesn’t stop at the circuit gates. Melbourne runs city-wide activations during race week, with pop-ups in St Kilda and Federation Square in recent years, bringing a taste of the Grand Prix into the city itself for people who aren’t at Albert Park that day. Combined with Melbourne’s typically packed March calendar, a month that regularly hosts other major events alongside the race, it means race-week evenings in the city are part of the event, not just something happening around it.
This matters more than it might first seem for how you plan a trip. If your accommodation is central, you’re inside that week, staying somewhere that feels part of the atmosphere, rather than commuting past it each evening to get back to a hotel on the outskirts, missing the parts of race week that don’t happen inside the circuit gates at all.
Planning Around the Entertainment
Here’s the honest advice: tickets and packages sell through the months when the lineup is still unknown. The concerts have been included with entry every year regardless of who headlines, so waiting for the announcement just means choosing from whatever seating is still available by the time you know who’s playing. Popular grandstands and package tiers don’t wait for February to sell out.
Some nights suit different plans, too. A Sunday headliner follows the race itself, meaning your evening builds directly on the biggest session of the weekend. Thursday tends to be the value-day pairing, with unreserved grandstand seating and a genuinely relaxed atmosphere, good for a first taste of the event without committing to peak pricing. It’s also the family-friendly option: Thursday Park Passes were $45 in 2026, with children 14 and under admitted free alongside an adult ticketholder.
Secure your weekend now with one of our Australian Grand Prix packages and tickets, and have the entertainment already locked in whenever the lineup lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the Australian Grand Prix concerts free?
Yes. Any valid ticket, including a Park Pass, gets you in. There’s no separate concert ticket, and there never has been.
What time does the music start?
After track action ends each evening. Exact times get published once the lineup is confirmed, but expect the gap between the last session and the first act to be short.
When will the 2027 lineup be announced?
Based on the last two years, expect early-to-mid February 2027, roughly four weeks before the race, with the full lineup sometimes arriving in more than one wave.
Who played the Australian Grand Prix in 2026?
Rita Ora, Duke Dumont and Basement Jaxx headlined, with Rogue Traders, SHOUSE, Mallrat, Logic1000 and dameeeela in support, across four nights of music.
Do grandstand tickets include the concerts?
Yes. Access comes from having a valid ticket, not from which seating category you’re in, so a general admission Park Pass gets you the same festival access as a premium grandstand seat.
Two Events in One
The Australian Grand Prix is a race weekend and a festival at the same time, and neither half is an afterthought. The racing decides who wins on track. The Lakeside Festival is why so many people stay well past the chequered flag each evening, and why the atmosphere at Albert Park carries on long after the cars are back in the garage. Whatever the 2027 lineup ends up being, the concerts will be there, included in your ticket, the same as they always have been. View our Australian Grand Prix 2027 packages to plan your weekend at Albert Park.
