Ballarat’s iconic Victorian architecture serves as the backdrop for the return of the award-winning Ballarat Heritage Festival. The awe-inspiring 10-day celebration features an assortment of new additions set to captivate festivalgoers.

Among the highlights of this year’s program is the vibrant performance of Parrwang Lifts the Sky, making its debut on Wadawurrung Country. Based on an original Wadawurrung creation story, this all-ages opera tells the story of how Parrwang the magpie helped lift the blanket of darkness on the land to create the first dawn.

Now in its fourth year, Craft Lab returns to the Ballarat Mining Exchange with 17 practitioners – from weavers and metalworkers to ceramicists, jewellers and more – who will share their knowledge, expertise, and techniques (and trade secrets) with visitors.

For a fully immersive artisan experience, The Great Takeaway is an exclusively tailored dinner that provides guests with the opportunity to dine among some of the finest materials, textiles, glassware, and ceramics produced in the Ballarat region – and diners can take home the handcrafted dinner setting with them at the end of the evening.

Cap off festival evenings by savouring globally renowned outdoor video installation Monuments by Australian artist Craig Walsh. Moving images projected onto trees represent a haunting synergy between the human form and the natural environment with subjects depicted drawn from Ballarat’s recent and not-so-recent past.