# The Gold Coast Show 2026: a long-weekend base on Fern Street > The Gold Coast Show runs 28 to 30 August 2026 at Broadwater Parklands, and the Friday is a Gold Coast public holiday. Free entry, three days of rides and fireworks, and room to spread out afterwards on Fern Street. - Tag: Travel tips - Published: 2026-07-09 --- The last Friday of August is a public holiday on the Gold Coast. **Gold Coast Show Day falls on 28 August 2026**, the gazetted holiday locals still know as People's Day, and it hands the coast a three-day weekend. A good share of it gets spent up the road at the **Gold Coast Show** at Broadwater Parklands in Southport. Three days, **Friday 28 to Sunday 30 August**, free to walk in. The Show has run since 1906, when it started life as the Southport Show, and it now draws more than 140,000 people across the weekend, billed plainly enough as sun, sea and country in one place. It is a big, busy, sunburnt sort of day, which makes the case for having somewhere roomy to come back to. Marriner Views sits about 6 km south on Fern Street, in 180-square-metre apartments built for exactly this kind of weekend: a family, or two families together, with space to actually unwind between outings. ## What's on across the three days For all the neon, it is still an agricultural show at heart, and the country half is what gives it character: the wood chop, the equestrian ring, and the baby-animal nursery the little ones will not want to leave, with pony rides and camel rides for anyone game. The carnival does the rest, the year's biggest rides running **9am to 9pm**, the showbag halls and a show train looping for the youngest, and food best eaten on your feet, dagwood dogs and potato tornadoes and most things on a stick. **Fireworks go up every night at 6.45pm**, three nights running. This year's full program and ride list sit on the official [Gold Coast Show](https://goldcoastshow.com.au/) site. ## Getting to Southport from Fern Street Broadwater Parklands is roughly **6 km north**. Driving is quick enough on an ordinary day, but Show days are not ordinary, and the parking near the grounds fills early, so the light rail tends to win. **Florida Gardens G:link station is 750 metres from the door**, and the line runs north through Surfers Paradise toward Southport and the Broadwater. If you would rather drive, every apartment here comes with a **complimentary undercover space** at 2-metre clearance, so the call is yours: leave the car and tram in, or drive up and treat the walk from the car park as part of the day out.
Aerial view of Marriner Views and the Surfers Paradise coast running north toward Southport
## Room to land afterwards A day at the Show is a lot of sun, sugar and standing, and the apartment is where that pays off. The kitchens are full-sized, so the evening meal is whatever the group feels like rather than another queue, which matters when the kids have already had their fill of dagwood dogs. The **heated saltwater pool holds 26°C** through winter, with a large spa, sauna and steam room beside it for the grown-ups, and gardens and a tennis court for anyone still running on carnival energy. Apartments are 180 square metres, only two to a floor, so a big group is never on top of one another. There is no air-conditioning, by design: each apartment faces two ways, ocean on one side and hinterland on the other, and the cross-breeze does the cooling with the balcony doors open on a warm August night.
Large heated outdoor spa beside the pool deck at Marriner Views
## Book the August long weekend **28 to 30 August 2026.** The public-holiday Friday makes three nights the natural shape, and demand around the long weekend is steady, so it pays to book ahead. Check-in runs 2 to 5pm, and late arrival is easy to arrange if you are driving up after work on the Friday. [**Check availability and reserve your apartment**](/accommodation/index.md), or look over the [2-bedroom superior](/accommodation/2-bedroom-superior-apartment/index.md) for two couples and the [3-bedroom ocean view](/accommodation/3-bedroom-ocean-apartment/index.md) for a wider group with a 19th-floor outlook for the rest of the stay. For dates, showbag lists and this year's entertainment, see the official [Gold Coast Show](https://goldcoastshow.com.au/) site.