Bigsound Announces Over 100 Artists For 2025 Conference

As Australia’s flagship music festival, conference and industry pre-summer camp BIGSOUND gears up to take over Meanjin/Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley this September, organisers have today hit us with the mammoth first artist lineup.

Among the 120+ bands and artists tapped to showcase at this year’s extravaganza are globe-trotting soulful electronic/R&B artist WAFIA, Melbourne/Naarm-based Papua New Guinean neo-soul artist Kaiit, Sydney/Eora indie artist Azure Ryder, Perth/Boorloo rock n’ rollers The Southern River Band, Brisbane/ Meanjin’s own J Award nominated artist Hatchie, Sydney indie-rockers Polish Club, South Australian producer George Alice, NSW singer-songwriter Lola Scott, Adelaide indie-rockers The Tullamarines and Purée, Perth indie-folkster Ullah and triple j Unearthed High class of 2024 members Zafty and Mariae Cassandra.

Wafia – ‘Crystal Ball’

To boot, Perth/Boorloo hip-hop artist Inkabee will become one of BIGSOUND’s youngest ever showcasing artists, added to the 2025 lineup at just 12 years old.

This year’s artist bill also has a generous helping from of bands from the heavy space, including Naarm/Melbourne metalcore collective Bad/Love, genre-benders Nightlight, heavy grunge rockers Bad Juju and punk duo Mannequin Death Squad, Sydney pop-punk duo BESTIES, prog-rockers Closure, Adelaide pop-punks Down And Out and metalcore purveyors Heartline.

All of these artists and more – spanning genres of rock and pop, to country, R&B, folk, punk, electronic, hip-hop and beyond – will showcase across 18 stages and multiple nights when BIGSOUND hits Fortitude Valley from Tuesday, 2nd – Friday, 5th September.

In a joint statement, festival co-programmers Casey O’Shaughnessy and Katie Rynne said: “Curating this year’s program has been such a joy — the artists we’ve selected reflect the incredible depth of talent in Australia, and each one is doing truly exciting things with their music. We’re so proud of this group and can’t wait to see them bring the Fortitude Valley to life in September”.

They continued: “We also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to every single artist who applied. We were genuinely blown away by the quality, creativity and diversity of submissions — it made the selection process incredibly tough, in the best possible way. There’s so much talent out there, and while we couldn’t include everyone this year, we recognise the heart you put into your music, and we’re excited for what lies ahead for you.”

You can peep the full artist lineup and ticketing details for BIGSOUND 2025 down below.