Coolangatta, QLD: Flotsam Arts Inc has dropped the dates for its 2026 installment of Flotsam Festival, running 1–14 May, and revealed a major new chapter: a three-year multi-year partnership with Experience Gold Coast (EGC). The alliance anchors Flotsam Festival firmly on the southern Gold Coast across 2026-2028, powering a bold expansion of creative programming, coastline-led storytelling, and the festival’s signature fusion of surf culture and visual expression.
For 2026, the festival's fifth annual innings, expect a sharper, more kinetic program: deep-dive photography labs, ocean-immersed screenings, artist exhibitions mapped to tide charts and enhanced by AR elements, and surprise crossovers between filmmakers, surf creatives, visual artists and music makers. Designed for locals, visitors, surf-tragics, culture-seekers and anyone who revels around the edge of the waterline, Flotsam will again transform the coastline from Coolangatta to Burleigh into a living gallery stretched across sand, streets, screens and salt.
The new multi year partnership with Experience Gold Coast accelerates this vision, and follows on the heels of Flotsam Arts Inc being awarded City of Gold Coast Arts Development Fund Arts Partnerships Funding, which provides multi-year operational support for local arts organizations to build sustainability, artistic excellence, and community engagement, aiming to grow the sector. The Arts Development Fund is a City of Gold Coast Council fund that supports the Gold Coast’s creative community by fostering professional pathways and skills development, contributing to our city’s vibrant lifestyle.
Backed by the City of Gold Coast and EGC, Flotsam gains fuel to grow its platform for emerging talent, amplify the work of its internationally-recognised creatives, and to produce programming that reflects the Gold Coast’s distinct artistic identity: sun-etched, surf-adjacent, and globally connected.
“What a coup, securing Flotsam for a further three years with the 2026 program shaping as the best yet,’’ said Gold Coast Acting Mayor Mark Hammel. “The strength of this festival is its visual energy and connection with the ocean through art, music, photography and workshops. Congratulations to all involved.’’
Flotsam Arts Inc will announce new projects to be unveiled as part of the full Flotsam Festival program in the new year.
About Flotsam Arts
Flotsam Arts Inc is a not-for-profit arts organisation that curates experiences at the intersection of surf culture, visual storytelling and contemporary art. Through exhibitions, workshops, residencies and its flagship annual festival, Flotsam champions creators who see the ocean not only as a subject but as a studio. Based on the southern Gold Coast, Flotsam connects local and global talent, grows creative careers, and builds cultural experiences shaped by community, coastline and creative exchange.
The fifth annual Flotsam Festival will take place 1-14 May, 2026.
Flotsam Festival is supported by the City of Gold Coast and Experience Gold Coast.
Media room: https://flotsamarts.pr.co/
Festival website: https://www.flotsamfestival.com.au
Film Freeway: https://filmfreeway.com/FlotsamSurfFilmAndPhotogra...
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- Carolyn Ridings Emge
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Soul Arch Media
P: 07 55595551
M: 0415301913 - caz@soularchmedia.com