HOTA’s Outdoor Stage runs two headline nights back to back during BLEACH Festival, which takes over the precinct from Thursday 1 to Sunday 11 October 2026, moved to spring for the first time under new Artistic Director Felix Preval. Between them the two shows cover most of a group’s tastes, soul and jazz one night, a stadium-sized New Zealand act the next, without a single night forcing a compromise. For a group booking Marriner Views, that’s two big nights out inside one long weekend, and a building with the room to recover between them.
Back-to-back nights on the Outdoor Stage
Lady Blackbird & Electric Fields open the weekend on Friday 2 October, free and ticketed, a double bill running soul and jazz into electronic storytelling, all ages, capped at six tickets per booking. The following night, Saturday 3 October, SIX60 headline with support from Sub-Tribe, their first time back on HOTA’s Outdoor Stage in seven years, general admission standing, tickets at $89. SIX60 arrive as New Zealand’s highest-selling live band, named the country’s first Chart Icon at the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards, with 48 platinum-certified singles and more than 1,200 weeks on the New Zealand charts between them; Sub-Tribe bring a seven-piece dub-fusion set out of Sydney, built on South Pacific roots, Jamaican reggae and UK dubstep. The show carries content notes for loud sound, strobe and haze, worth knowing before a group with younger members books in. Two very different nights on the same stage, four days apart in the festival’s opening weekend.
Everything else on the eleven-day bill
BEACON, Morag Myerscough’s large-scale Lakeside installation with Gold Coast group Everybody NOW!, runs the full eleven days, hand-painted gateways by day and neon after dark. THAW opens the festival at 5 am on Thursday 1 October, a performer suspended over melting ice on Surfers Paradise Beach, with a second session at HOTA Lake Precinct that Saturday night. Closing weekend belongs to No One Gets Out of Here Alive at Theatre 1, The Farm’s hour-long work on mortality, playing 10 and 11 October.
Getting across to HOTA
Two ways onto the G:link from Fern Street: Florida Gardens, 750 metres from the door, or the walk up to Cavill Avenue, 1.5 km, for a look at the main strip first. Either lands the group at Surfers Paradise for the crossing HOTA sends everyone on from there, over Chevron Island and the Green Bridge, roughly twenty minutes on foot. A group driving instead is better off parking once at Marriner, one secure space per apartment with 2-metre clearance, than counting on a second free bay at HOTA the morning after the first show.
Room to recover before the next one
180 square metres and two apartments a floor means a group isn’t stepping over each other between concert nights. The apartments run on fans and cross-breeze rather than air-conditioning, ocean side to hinterland side, and the outdoor spa is a genuine option for anyone whose legs remember standing through SIX60. The heated saltwater pool sits at 26°C for whoever’s up early enough the next morning, the sauna and steam room cover the cooler stretches, and the tennis court and gardens fill in the day between the two shows.
Locking in the weekend
A Thursday-to-Monday booking covers both concert nights with a full day either side, the Northcliffe stretch of sand fifty metres from the door for whoever needs to sit still for a morning before the next one. Check-in runs 2 to 5 pm, so a Friday arrival ahead of the first show is the simplest way in.
Find your dates and book direct, or read more about the Superior Two-Bedroom and the Three-Bedroom Ocean View, both built for a group splitting one big weekend two ways.
Tickets for both nights, and whatever else joins the eleven-day bill, are booked through the official BLEACH Festival site.
