Call Your Dad: The Red Hot Summer 2026 Tour Line-Up Has Dropped, And It’s Massive

The Red Hot Summer Tour 2025 hasn’t even arrived yet, but Red Hot Summer 2026 is already preheating: Paul Kelly has been announced as the headliner of the touring music festival on a run of dates between January and March 2026, with an all-Aussie lineup, including Missy Higgins and The Cruel Sea. So fill the ice trays, because your housemate definitely hasn’t done it, and it’s going to be a hot one.

Kelly is returning to the 11-date tour after last headlining the 2022 edition, fresh from another casual arena tour. And despite what you may have heard about the state of music festivals, it’s reassuring to know that an old-fashioned outdoor festival focusing on an all-local lineup of musical heavyweights in picturesque spots is proving to be a winner. 

Image Credit: Kristyna Higgins

Who’s On The Line Up For Red Hot Summer Tour 2026?

Paul Kelly is known in millennial brainrot lore as The Gravy Man and to everyone normal as a beloved singer-songwriter and arguably the Australian dad rock poet laureate, while we’re making up titles. The radiant bittersweetness of How To Make Gravy is such a phenomenon for Kelly fans now, in fact, that he released a sequel song, Rita Wrote A Letter in August this year. But Kelly’s legacy goes far deeper than an accidental Christmas classic: from From Little Things Big Things Grow to To Her Door, he’s been gently teaching us how to make our way through life for decades. The fact that he’s playing the biggest stages of his career at 70 is as beautiful and life-affirming as the energy of a PK live show.

Joining Kelly at the top of the ticket is the only solo act to be voted above him in the recent triple j Hottest 100: Missy Higgins. That #4 spot in the countdown for Scar showed why Higgins spent much of last year marking the 20th anniversary of her debut The Sound Of White with tours and reflections. If your best girl missed out on Chappell-at-Laneway, treating her to a Special Two singalong might be just the ticket.

Led by perfectly-worn-denim-shirt given human form Tex Perkins, The Cruel Sea are also aboard to give things a bit of extra rough and ready charm, not to mention material from Straight Into The Sun–their first new album in over two decades. Brassy greeters The Cat Empire, country queen Kasey Chambers, and Kelly gang (band) member Jess Hitchcock round out the roster. 

Image Credit: Kasey Chambers | Facebook

How Much Are Tickets?

All dates are below, and tickets (starting at $159.90+fees) are on sale now via Face To Face Touring.

Where Is The Red Hot Summer Tour Actually Going?

Deep breath, folks–there’s a lot of ground being covered across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia.

The Red Hot Summer Tour 2026 is on:

• Saturday 17 January at Warrnambool Racecourse, Warrnambool VIC
• Saturday 24 January at Speers Point Park, Lake Macquarie NSW
• Saturday 31 January at Westport Park, Port Macquarie NSW
• Sunday 1 February at Broadwater Parklands, Southport QLD
• Sunday 8 February at Werribee Park, Werribee South VIC
• Saturday 14 February at Berry Showground, Berry NSW
• Sunday 15 February at Bella Vista Farm, Bella Vista NSW
• Saturday 28 February at Gateway Lake, Wodonga VIC
• Sunday 8 March at Launceston Country Club, Launceston TAS
• Saturday 14 March at Bendigo Racecourse, Bendigo VIC
• Saturday 21 March at Kent Reserve, Victor Harbor SA

What If I Can’t Wait?

Fret not, you keen bean. Red Hot Summer Tour 2025 is still to come, with the first dates kicking off in Queensland on October 18 and 19, and the bench is just as stacked. Crowded House headline, with Angus & Julia Stone, The Church, Mark Seymour with Vika & Linda, and The Waifs.

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