When is Show Days?

Holidays that depend on where you work

Show day holidays are the one part of the Australian calendar that is genuinely local. Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania each declare public holidays for agricultural shows, cups and regattas, and each one applies only in the council area or region where the event is held. Whether you get the day off depends on where your workplace is, not where you live. Someone who lives on the Gold Coast but works in Brisbane gets the Ekka holiday, not the Gold Coast Show day.

This site lists the major show holidays for each state and marks them as regional. Because they are proclaimed year by year, some dates are not known until the government publishes them, and Queensland's council list in particular is usually gazetted late in the previous year.

Queensland

The Royal Queensland Show, universally called the Ekka, runs for ten days in August at the Brisbane Showgrounds and has done since 1876. The Wednesday of show week, People's Day, is a public holiday in the Brisbane local government area. Every other Queensland council area has its own show holiday, set by the local council and gazetted by the state: the Gold Coast Show, the Toowoomba Royal Show, the Cairns Show and dozens more, spread from April to October. The Ekka page has the Brisbane dates, and the state list on the year pages covers the major centres.

Northern Territory

The Territory has five regional show days, each a Friday: Alice Springs (first Friday in July), Tennant Creek (second), Katherine (third), Darwin (fourth) and Borroloola (the Friday on or after 13 August). Each applies in its own town or region, and they sit in the middle of the dry season alongside Picnic Day in August.

Tasmania

Tasmania's Statutory Holidays Act lists a run of local days: the Royal Hobart Show (a Thursday in late October, southern Tasmania), the Royal Launceston Show, the Burnie Show, the Devonport Show, the Flinders Island and King Island shows, the Devonport and Launceston cups, and AGFEST in Circular Head. Each applies only in its own municipal area. Tasmania also splits the state for its two non-show regional days, the Royal Hobart Regatta in the south and Recreation Day in the north.

Other states

New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the ACT do not have show holidays at state level, but several NSW and Victorian councils declare local event days (often half-days) for their show or race meeting, and regional Victorian councils commonly take a local show day instead of Melbourne Cup Day. These are announced council by council and are outside the scope of this site. The guide to regional show holidays explains how to check whether one applies to you.