Deaf Festival Sydney: Australia’s largest Deaf celebration returns in 2025
30 August 2025. The nation’s biggest celebration of Deaf culture, history, community is taking centre stage again this year. Deaf Festival Sydney 2025 will be held at Cathy Freeman Park, Sydney Olympic Park, on Saturday 30 August from 10am–4pm, and is free to attend.
Open to people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, Deaf Festival Sydney features an exciting lineup of Deaf performers, Deaf businesses and Deaf-led workshops, showcasing the rich talents of the community across various artistic disciplines.
This is a proudly bilingual event, with interpreting and captioning provided across the main stage, workshops and kids’ zone. Volunteer communication assistants will also be on the ground to facilitate conversations between Auslan and English. Whether this is your first time or you’re a familiar face, everyone is welcome to enjoy this celebration of culture, language and inclusivity.
Deaf Connect Chief Executive Officer, Brett Casey, stated that Deaf Connect is proud to support this initiative, creating Deaf Space and uniting Deaf people from across the nation and abroad.
“Deaf Connect has a longstanding history with Deaf Festival in New South Wales, and it’s been a privilege to keep supporting this ongoing celebration of Deaf pride and community spirit as the Platinum Sponsor for the fourth consecutive year. Mr Casey said.
“The 2025 event promises an outstanding program, with performances by prominent Australian and international artists. Whether you’re coming with your family or friends or want to build on your connections in the community, Deaf Festival Sydney has resources and services that empower people at every stage of life,”
Brett Casey, Deaf Connect CEO
The Deaf Festival Sydney Organising Committee highlighted the exceptional talent in this year’s lineup of performers and stallholders.
“We’re thrilled to bring back this incredible showcase of Deaf talent and create a space where Deaf Australians can connect with culture, services, language and creativity.
“The first Deaf Festival Sydney was held in 1992, in Darling Harbour. Over 30 years later, the festival has continued to grow each year, attracting almost 3,900 people in 2024 – 20 per cent of whom came from outside Sydney, from interstate and overseas,” the Committee said.
Young people and families will be engaged by an Auslan Storytime session courtesy of the City of Ryde Council, Art Sessions with talented artists Sue Jo Wright and Gonketa, and many more.
Deaf Festival Sydney is proudly supported by Deaf Connect, Convo, Concentrix, NextSense, PAH!, Word of Mouth Technology, Hearing Australia, Signpedia, Full Life, and Communication eXtra.
Deaf Connect is a whole-of-life service provider and social impact organisation for Deaf, Deafblind and hard of hearing Australians. We stand with the Deaf community to build capacity and influence social change while paying respect to history, culture and language.
Deaf Connect is the largest employer of Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Australia, a registered provider under the National Disability Insurance Scheme and an approved provider of in-home care for seniors. Deaf Connect is also the country’s biggest Auslan interpreting agency and provides training in sign language through our RTO (RTO Provider Number 41192).
