Venue Registrations

Image: A Resourceful Hero - Malthouse Outdoor Stage, Midsumma Festival 2022. Photo by Sofia Sisconetto

Venue registrations for Midsumma Festival 2024 will open in May 2023.

Everything you need to know about registering your venue for Midsumma Festival

Midsumma Festival maintains an extensive database of brilliant venues of all shapes and sizes on our Eventotron registration system – this database is available to all 5,000 of Midsumma's artists and producers, who will use it to find the perfect home for their show, exhibition or event. It’s totally FREE to register your venue with us – we don’t charge our venues anything to take part.

Midsumma venues are made up of theatres, galleries, pubs, clubs, churches, vacant buildings, bars, offices. We’ve had everything from major arts centres to book stores participate in Midsumma Festival. If you have space, you can be a Midsumma venue.

To make sure your venue is an available choice for our artists and culture makers set to take the stage for Midsumma Festival 2024, register your venue ASAP (once registrations open in May) - the sooner you register, the more artists and producers will find you. The final deadline for event registrations will be in August 2023, so we do encourage you to register your venue by the end of July at the very latest.

To be an official venue for Midsumma Festival you need to:

Step 1 – register

Register your venue through Midsumma Festival’s event registration system, Eventotron. Go to eventotron.com to sign up and get you started. There is also a Venue Registration Guide to take you through step-by-step.

See What you need to register below for instructions.

Already registered with Eventotron? Great! Check your registration is up to date and check that your venue has been added to the Midsumma Festival 2024 list in Eventotron.

Step 2 – engage

Engage with a producer or artist to register an event through Midsumma Festival at your venue (see Booking artists and events) or register your own event.

Remember: you will only be considered an official Midsumma Festival venue when you have a registered Midsumma Festival event booked in your venue.

Once you have an event registered at your venue you will receive:

Listing in 35,000 printed Midsumma Festival Guides, distributed across Melbourne, Victoria and Sydney
Promotion on midsumma.org.au through the registered event listing (346, 692 users for the 2023 festival)
Support from the Midsumma Festival team, including operational, artistic programming and marketing advice
Venue decal (optional) and access to Midsumma Festival branding

Venue name
Address, council area
Public contact details for the website
Venue accessibility information
A brief description and image of your venue
Opening hours
Space name (if you have multiple spaces in your venue)
Space capacity
Space accessibility
Space image
Social media links (if applicable)

During registrations in Eventotron you will also be able to opt in to the handy Venue Finder tool in order for artists to find and contact you for bookings. Artists using the Venue Finder will be searching for things like location, preferred genres, type of hire costs, what kind of marketing and artist support is provided, capacity, lighting, sound and performance space specifics provided etc. Be as up front as possible with what you can provide and don’t promise anything you cannot deliver.

Already registered with Eventotron? Great! Check your registration is up to date.

When it comes to booking artists and events, the most important thing to do is be proactive!

We encourage you to advertise through any available channels that you’re on the hunt for Midsumma events. Post on your Facebook and Instagram, or send out an eNews, or even pop up a poster in your venue. You can also create an Expression of Interest form to make it easy for producers to apply to your venue. Midsumma can then share this through our social media channels and include the link on our website

Don't sit back and wait for artists to come to you, you can reach out to them also. Talk with artists that you think would be a great fit in your venue. Chat to anyone who already performs or exhibits at your venue. Get creative and start reaching out!

Another option to be involved in Midsumma is to register a show that you already run in your venue as a Midsumma event. If you run a weekly trivia night or a monthly open mic night, you can register it as a Midsumma Festival event as a way of increasing your audience.

NOTE: Ticketing information for the 2023 festival is listed below. Details may change for the 2024 festival.

Our Ticketing System

Midsumma Festival is again working with Eventfinda as the ticketing system for the 2023 festival. All ticketed Midsumma Festival events (free and priced) must have 100% of their event capacity sold through the Midsumma Festival ticketing system (unless otherwise approved by Midsumma). Chat with us if you already have a ticketing system in place.

Door Sales

You'll need to work with the event producer to arrange a box office at the venue for door sales. Tickets will go off-sale through the Midsumma Festival website one hour before your event start time, ready for you to start selling tickets at your venue.

Allocated Seating

There is no charge for allocated seating. However, we will need to work with you to build a seating plan in the ticketing system. Speak to us to discuss via [email protected]. But seriously, general admission is always easier for you to manage and for audiences to book, so we would only recommend allocated seating if you have to.

Do you have any marketing opportunities like social media, emails, notice boards or members to promote the Midsumma event to? Will you be able to make a booklet or brochure with all the events in your venue?
Why not offer Midsumma Festival attendees a food or drink deal? View our Midsumma Marketing and Publicity Guide to get hot tips and a step-by-step on how to get your event the best exposure.
Be clear about the style of events you would like to program. Having a strong curatorial vision attracts artists who are looking for the venue that suits them.
It might also be worth considering what live streaming or online ability your venue might have, or even just talking to your artists about the willingness for them to tackle a digital stage.

Inclusivity and diversity are at the heart of Midsumma Festival. As such, we're dedicated to making the festival accessible to all audiences. We encourage you to read our Accessibility information below.

Accessible Midsumma

Inclusivity and diversity are at the heart of Midsumma Festival. As such, we're dedicated to making the festival accessible to audiences with disability.

Gender and Sexuality Inclusivity

Accessibility isn’t just about wheelchair ramps and Auslan interpreters. Although they are important - it’s also about attitude and language. At Midsumma, we actively encourage full diversity at events regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.

For more ways to create an open and respectful environment at your event, read through Midsumma's Inclusive Language Guide. This document contains definitions, explanations and handy tips that are useful in avoiding making assumptions about a person’s gender or sexual orientation or using language that can cause offence. Download the Inclusive Language Guide >>

Accessible Bathrooms
What's on the bathroom door? We encourage you to use gender neutral signage on bathrooms to help trans and gender non-binary peoples feel more comfortable at your venue. Signs that advertise the facilities available, rather than describing the attendees, work best. You are free to download and use our signs: toilet, urinal or gender neutral and accessible toilet.

Wheelchair Access

Not all venues are wheelchair accessible. Read through the information below to ensure your venue is truly accessible to people using wheelchairs.

Access: Can a wheelchair user get into your venue? Entry should be 1.2m wide or more, and there shouldn't be steps.
Toilets: Is there an accessible bathroom? Make sure it isn't being used as a storage cupboard and doesn't require a key from venue staff.
Parking: Is there accessible parking or a wheelchair friendly drop-off point?
Free Movement: Does the venue have good internal movement circulation? Could someone in a wheelchair 1.2m wide easily manoeuvre inside? Are there steps inside the venue that would prevent a wheelchair user from fully participating in your event?
Signage: If your accessible entrance is not the main entrance, has the venue established good signage and way-finding for wheelchair users?
Whether or not to include this icon will be determined by you when you register your venue in Eventotron.

Hearing Loop Services

Does your venue provide a hearing loop service? A hearing loop service is a hearing device that amplifies all on-stage audio for people who are hard-of-hearing.

Whether or not to include the Hearing Loop icon will be determined by you when you register your venue in Eventotron.

Go to eventotron.com (once registrations open in May 2023).

Use an existing account or create a new account.

If you create a new account, you will also need to sign in using this new account.

Once you have successfully logged in, click on VENUES at the top.

Now, select Create A New Venue

Once selected, you can begin to enter the details of your venue.

When asked to join a festival, please select Midsumma Festival 2024.

Once your event is created, please follow the step-by-step prompts to complete your registration with Midsumma Festival 2024.

Registration deadlines and other key dates for Midsumma Festival 2023 are listed below. Similar deadlines should apply for Midsumma Festival 2024:

Wednesday 1 June 2022 - Registrations Open
Monday 22 August 2022: Event and Venue Registrations Close
Monday 22 August 2022: Book Advertising in the Midsumma Printed Guide
Monday 17 October 2022: Venue Agreement Due
Mid-November (tbc): Program Launch: Midsumma Festival 2023

Midsumma's Major Events

Midsumma Festival 2024: Sunday 21 January - Sunday 11 February 2024
Midsumma Carnival: Sunday 21 January 2024
Midsumma Pride March: Sunday 4 February 2024
Victoria's Pride Street Party: Sunday 11 February 2024

Please get in contact if you are having difficulty reaching any of these timelines and we will work with you to find a solution.

If you have any questions or require assistance to complete the registration of your venue or to find out about artists and event opportunities, please email us at [email protected], phone 03 9296 6600 or fill out the Contact Us form, and one of our friendly staff members will help.

Looking to register an EVENT?

Head to our Event Registrations page.

Three scantily dressed people on stage looking very burlesque-like

Event Registrations

Ongoing advice, workshops, event services, resources and everything you need to register your open-access event as part of the upcoming Midsumma Festival.

Open-Access Event Registrations