Destination NSW is supercharging winter visitation to Sydney and regional NSW with a major events line-up that will deliver more than $320 million into the visitor economy.

The 24 events supported by Destination NSW are projected to draw almost 2.5 million attendees from June to August.

Australia’s headline winter event, Vivid Sydney, celebrated four bumper Saturdays in 2025, which each attracted crowds nearing 200,000.

Preliminary estimates for Vivid Sydney 2025, suggest the event pushed total visitation since the festival’s inception in 2009 beyond 25 million people, with more than $1.3 billion generated in visitor expenditure over its lifetime.

Musical productions taking to Sydney stages during winter include the Australian premiere of MJ The Musical, nine-time Tony Award-winning The Book of Morman and Titanique, while cultural highlights range from Sydney Film Festival to Yolŋu Power: The Art of Yirrkala at Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Sport fans will enjoy the British and Irish Lions Rugby Tour, back for the first time in 12 years, the Women’s State of Origin series and the final match of the 2025 Men’s State of Origin series.

The TCS Sydney Marathon will round out the state’s stellar winter events calendar. More than 80,000 people from 156 countries entered the ballot for a starting ticket on 31 August 2025 following the event becoming the seventh Abbot World Major.

Destination NSW has also launched a new seasonal campaign called ‘Feel the Sydney side of winter’, which targets visitors from Victoria, Queensland, ACT and NSW. The campaign highlights the city’s action-packed major events calendar alongside visitor experiences such as whale watching, the Harbour City’s world-class dining scene and its diverse galleries and museums.

The ‘Feel the Sydney side of winter’ campaign runs until August across print, broadcast and social channels. Destination NSW is working in partnership with hotels and online travel agencies to promote travel offers for the winter period, including Expedia, Wotif, Qantas Holidays, Accor Hotels, TFE Hotels, Marriott Hotels, TripAdvisor and Trip.com.

Destination NSW CEO Karen Jones said: “From Vivid Sydney to Broken Hill’s Mundi Mundi Bash and from whale watching to fireside dining, our winter line-up offers extraordinary ways to connect with place and culture right across the state.

“With fresh campaigns promoting winter travel and a packed events calendar, we expect winter 2025 to build on last year’s success, when 9.7 million overnight visitors contributed $10.7 billion to the state’s economy.”

Destination NSW-supported events during winter 2025:

  • Titanique
  • Surfest
  • MJ: The Musical
  • Vivid Sydney
  • Vivid Sydney at Carriageworks
  • Vivid LIVE at Sydney Opera House and Lighting of the Sails
  • National Touch League, Coffs Harbour
  • Sydney Film Festival
  • Museum of Contemporary Art Australia: Cerith Wyn Evans
  • Art Gallery of New South Wales: Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala
  • British and Irish Lions versus NSW Waratahs
  • Men’s State of Origin
  • ·Women’s State of Origin
  • 2025 Emerging Matildas Championship
  • The Book of Mormon
  • British and Irish Lions versus Wallabies - Third Test
  • Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash
  • TCS Sydney Marathon
  • Glenworth Grazing Festival
  • Winter Wine Festival, Gerringong
  • OpenField Arts Festival, Berry
  • Illuminate 2025, Raymond Terrace
  • StoryFest, South Coast
  • Ultra Trail Jervis Bay

For more information on winter in Sydney go to Winter in Sydney.

Sydney Airport prepares for busiest winter holiday period on record

Sydney Airport is gearing up for a bumper winter holiday period, with almost 2.6 million passengers expected to travel through the terminals between 30 June and 20 July 2025.

More than one million passengers expected through the T1 International terminal, a nine per cent increase on the same period in 2024. This makes it the busiest winter school holiday travel period in the airport’s history.

On the domestic front, more than 1.5 million passengers will travel through the T2 and T3 Domestic terminals, up four per cent on 2024.

Overall passenger numbers are up six per cent compared to the same 21-day period in 2024, with 150,000 more travellers expected this year.

The busiest day for the domestic terminal is expected to be Friday 4 July, with 81,000 passengers, while Saturday 12 July will be the most busy for the international terminal, with 54,000 passengers.