Every great show deserves an encore.
A week after the 2026 Festival wraps, Fringe Encore: Ballarat brings the adventurous spirit of Melbourne Fringe to regional Victoria for a vibrant weekend of surprising art. Whether you're making the trip from Melbourne or discovering the program in your own backyard, it's a chance to experience more of Fringe, with headline acts, independent artists and unexpected discoveries unfolding across the city.
The program includes a mix of regional exclusives, returning favourites and hand-picked Melbourne Fringe highlights. The world premiere of One Fell Swoop Circus' Degustation invites audiences into an ambitious collision of circus and cuisine, where food and acrobatics inspire one another. Fountain Lakes: Y2K rewinds the clock to the eve of the millennium for a fabulous drag comedy parody guaranteed to be noineteen-noinety-noine levels of camp.
Joining them is Na Djinang Circus' Ocker fresh from its Deadly Fringe premiere in Melbourne, alongside a curated selection of Open Program works presented at venues across Ballarat, giving audiences the chance to catch some of the Festival's standout independent artists for an encore season.
For one weekend, Ballarat becomes a place to do Fringe properly: stack your schedule, follow a recommendation, take a chance on something new and see where the weekend leads you.
