The ninth anniversary edition of Gaytimes will be held Fri Mar 21 - Sun Mar 23 2025 inclusive.

Gaytimes is held annually over three days in late summer. We’ve decided to move the festival from February to March to avoid the height of bushfire season. 

Gaytimes is a camping festival, so everyone camps on site. If you hate camping, we offer glamping at the most affordable prices of any festival in Australia.

Unfortunately, we don’t allow pass outs so you cannot stay in offsite accommodation.

We are considering offering Sunday Day Tickets for 2025, but these will will only go on sale after regular Tickets are sell out.

Our glamping packages are pre-pitched by our partners Wow Tents who’ve been with us since the very first year. All of our glamping tents are waterproof, canvas Bell Tents.

Yes. We have plenty of free, hot showers and permanent flushing toilets and water taps throughout the site.

Yes — but you can only BYO in limited quantities. We don’t allow excessive amounts of BYO alcohol or any glass. All vehicles and all buses are searched for excessive alcohol, glass and other contraband on arrival.

Gaytimes is fully licensed with our own cocktail bars if you run out or fancy a nice drink.

Yes. We have our own coffee cart serving barista made coffee made by baristas from the LGBTQIA+ community.

Gaytimes 2025 will be mostly cashless.

Yes — but car parking spaces are limited so you must purchase a Car Pass. We encourage you to consider taking the bus which is the cheaper, safer and more sustainable option.

Sadly no you can’t bring pets to Gaytimes as Gilwell Park is home to native wildlife.

Yes. Artist Submissions will open soon. Stay tuned to our website and subscribe for updates.

Gaytimes features a curated lineup with both established and emerging live music and DJs spanning many genres. Beyond just music, Gaytimes features performance art — including cabaret, drag, circus, theatre, comedy, dance etc, activities and workshops, and visual art installations.

Some of our lineup is always drawn from our submissions, while the rest is curated by our team to showcase queer music, arts and culture from around Australia and around the world.

Under state regulated noise restrictions enforced by the EPA, no outdoor amplified music can be played after 11pm — unless by permitted exemption.

Gilwell Park is a gorgeous forest site full of amenities that make it perfect for a boutique festival like Gaytimes including well maintained campgrounds, drinkable water points, permanent hot showers and flushing toilet blocks and power conveniently located just over 1 hour from Naarm (Melbourne) CBD.

Unfortunately, due to our close proximity to metropolitan Melbourne, Gilwell Park also has neighbours just 500 metres away.

As such, we are not allowed to run our outdoor stages late at night — unlike some much bigger festivals held in more remote locations.

If you want to stay up and party till the wee hours, we do offer after hours programming indoors played without the state regulated limits, and we will also offer non musical entertainment such as visual art, performers and activities late into the night.

All our headline and international acts and most of our programming play outdoors before 11pm.

Resales will be available through our ticketing partner Humanitix and will open in November.

We will not be accepting resale tickets from other resale platforms, such as Tixel at this stage.

Please beware of scammers and scalpers. Do not exchange funds for Gaytimes tickets with strangers on social media. If you purchase a ticket or try to resell one except via Gaytimes, we cannot verify your ticket.

Gaytimes is a boutique festival with a strictly limited capacity of 1500.

Yes. Festival tickets include free camping for the entire weekend.

Gaytimes is an 18+ licensed event. Unfortunately, this means you cannot attend if you are under 18 or bring children under 18 with you even if you purchase a valid ticket. Photo ID will be required at the gates upon entry.

Yes. For Gaytimes 2024, Humanitix will be offering both AfterPay and ZiP as payment plan options so you can purchase your tickets and glamping etc. upfront and pay in instalments to make it more affordable. Please set up your accounts for these providers in advance and require to their terms and conditions.

Gaytimes 2025 is a ticketed event. Trespassers will be prosecuted or evicted from the festival. If you don’t have a wristband or remove yours, you may be evicted from the event, referred to police or forced to pay for a full priced ticket.

No. Tickets will not be available for purchase on the day.

No. Shuttle Bus tickets and Car Passes will be available to purchase alongside tickets.

Festival tickets are for the entire weekend.

Ticket prices are inclusive of GST. Additional fees are calculated by Humanitix including your booking fee and some transactional fees depending on your method of payment. We also have to pay fees to Humanitix and to our payments provider. If you choose to use a payment plan, we also have to absorb costs associated with After Pay or ZiP.

Gaytimes offers heavily discounted Hardship tickets for those within our community who are experiencing hardship.

Applications are open.

Gaytimes offers an allocation of tickets First Nations people by application.

Apply by emailing hello@gaytimes.com.au if you are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Volunteer applications will open later in October. Further information will be made available on our website, and emailed out to subscribers. Volunteers receive a ticket in exchange for working two shifts at the festival, and it is a great option if you can’t afford a ticket or want to meet people.

Paid roles for experienced crew are available from time to time, and we will advertise these roles on our website and social channels. Please note these roles tend to be short term or seasonal casual or contract roles, as Gaytimes does not have any full-time employees.

If you’d like to express your interest in joining our crew, you can email us at hello@gaytimes.com.au.

Like all festivals in Australia, costs have significantly increased due to inflation, and cost of living pressures impacting the entire live music and events industry. We faced significant cost increases we couldn’t have anticipated (some of our fixed infrastructure such as staging nearly doubled) and the festival lost money,

To absorb increasing costs and ensure Gaytimes can continue in future years sustainably, we have had to increase ticket prices slightly. Ticket prices for Gaytimes 2025 are still in line with many other three-day camping festivals.

Unlike much larger festivals with 10,000+ patrons to share these costs, Gaytimes has to cover ALL of the costs with just ~1500 paying patrons. Ticket revenue has to cover many overheads including venue hire, staging infrastructure, production and lighting, site infrastructure (like marquees, stretch tents, power, lighting, portable toilets, fencing etc) and equipment to build it, insurances, licensing, security, first aid, other safety services such as Dancewize, catering, cleaning, waste management and removal, traffic management, event permit and planning documentation and consultants, transport, creative, artist fees and nearly 100 paid crew.

While many smaller camping festivals have only a single stage or feature only DJs or run programming only over two days, Gaytimes features a significant live music, performing arts and activities programme across multiple stages and spaces outdoor and indoor over multiple days. We feature over 100 artists and over 60+ live music and DJs each year — similar in ambition to festivals more than twice our size.

Ticket prices are also set to ensure they are affordable for most people but can also help subsidise heavily discounted tickets for people experiencing hardship and for First Nations attendees. 

Gaytimes is a community-run festival self-funded almost entirely through our ticket revenue and bar revenue. We receive no ongoing government funding, major corporate sponsorship or philanthropic support. We run the festival as a labour of love.

We pay our crew, our artist and our suppliers but we rely on the generosity of many people. Given our size, international and major artists often play for significantly reduced fees, and our key crew often work tirelessly on the festival for months for much less than they would normally get paid. No one is making a profit from this event — we do it for our community.