Hobart's summer festivals

The Sydney Hobart Yacht Race's finish

The Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is one of ocean racing's genuinely famous events — a fleet of yachts starts in Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day (26 December) and races south down the New South Wales and Tasmanian coasts, across the often-rough waters of Bass Strait, to a finish line on the Derwent River in Hobart. It's been run every year since 1945, which makes it one of the longest continuously run ocean races in the world, and the fleet's arrival in Hobart, typically a few days after the Boxing Day start depending on conditions, is a genuine event in its own right for the city.

The race's supermaxi yachts — the largest, fastest boats in the fleet — usually arrive first, sometimes within just over two days of a fast start, while the rest of the fleet straggles in over the following days; locals and visitors alike gather along the Hobart waterfront to watch boats cross the line, and the arrival of the eventual overall handicap winner (decided on corrected time rather than just who finishes first) can take even longer to resolve.

Bass Strait's reputation for rough, unpredictable weather is a genuine part of the race's mythology — some editions have been relatively calm affairs, while others have turned into genuinely difficult, even dangerous, ocean crossings that have shaped the race's safety rules and become part of the stories long-time competitors tell about it. That variability is exactly why the race's finish times shift so much from year to year, and why no specific arrival date can be stated as settled in advance.

Taste of Summer, on the waterfront

Hobart's other big late-December fixture is a large food, wine and produce festival on the city's waterfront, currently branded Taste of Summer — it's the same event long-time visitors may know as Taste of Tasmania, which ran under that name for around three decades before the City of Hobart divested ownership in the early 2020s and it was relaunched under new operators with its current branding. The core idea has stayed consistent through the name change: a week-plus of Tasmanian producers, wineries, food stalls, live music and a genuinely festive waterfront atmosphere, typically spanning the last days of December into the first days of January.

The festival sets up along Sullivans Cove and the historic waterfront precinct, putting it within easy walking distance of much of central Hobart, and it leans heavily on showcasing Tasmanian produce specifically — seafood, wine, cheese, whisky and the island's broader reputation for boutique food and drink producers — rather than presenting a generic food-festival lineup that could be found anywhere.

Because the rebrand is relatively recent, it's worth knowing both names if you're searching for information or older reviews — some listings, signage and casual references still use "Taste of Tasmania," even though the event now runs as Taste of Summer. It's also worth checking the current operators' official channels directly for each year's exact dates and program, since both have shifted somewhat since the ownership change.

MONA FOMA: honestly, it's ended

If you've heard of MONA FOMA — Mofo, MONA's summer music and arts festival that ran across Hobart and, in later years, Launceston too — it's worth knowing plainly that it's no longer running. MONA founder David Walsh announced in 2024 that the festival had finished for good after its 16th and final edition that February, describing the magic of the event as having "worn off" for him rather than pointing to any single external cause. This isn't a temporary hiatus or a pause between editions; it's a stated, permanent end to the festival as it was.

Mofo had built its own distinct identity over its run — an eclectic, left-of-centre music and arts program under longtime artistic direction, held in the Southern Hemisphere summer and, in some editions, split across both Hobart and Launceston to give northern Tasmania a slice of the same programming. Its closure was reported as a genuine surprise to a lot of the festival's regular audience, given it wasn't obviously flagged in advance by falling attendance or funding problems alone.

That means a Hobart summer trip built around catching Mofo specifically is no longer something you can plan for — worth knowing before an old blog post or outdated itinerary leads you to expect it. MONA itself, the museum that hosted the festival, continues operating separately and is very much still worth visiting on its own terms, festival or no festival.

What the stretch actually feels like now

Even without Mofo, Hobart's late-December-into-January window still carries a real festival atmosphere: the yacht race's dramatic, unpredictable arrival and the waterfront food festival genuinely overlap, so a trip timed around either one tends to catch some of the other by default. The city is noticeably busier and more festive than its usual quiet pace during this stretch, without tipping into anything like Sydney's New Year's Eve scale — Hobart's version of the same season reads as considerably lower-key, and that's arguably part of its appeal for visitors who'd rather skip the bigger mainland crowds.

Accommodation in Hobart does tighten up over this period, driven by the combination of the yacht race, the food festival and the general late-December/January peak of the Australian summer travel season, so booking ahead is worth it even though the city's overall scale keeps things more manageable than somewhere like Sydney.

Practical visitor notes and what to combine it with

Because Tasmania's festival scene has shifted meaningfully in just the last couple of years — a rebrand here, a permanent closure there — it's genuinely worth checking current event names, dates and status directly before building a trip around any specific one, rather than trusting an older source (including, eventually, this page) at face value. Hobart's waterfront precinct, where both the yacht race finish and Taste of Summer play out, is compact and walkable, so it's realistic to base yourself centrally and catch both without needing a car for the festival stretch itself.

Salamanca Market, Hobart's long-running Saturday market along Salamanca Place, runs year-round regardless of what else is on, and if a Saturday falls within your visit it's a reliable, low-key way to get a feel for the same Tasmanian produce culture that Taste of Summer celebrates, on a normal weekend rather than during the festival crush. MONA, a short ferry ride up the Derwent from the city centre, is also very much open on its own schedule throughout this period and is worth building into the same trip regardless of the yacht race or food festival dates.

If a bigger, louder New Year's is more what you're after than Hobart's comparatively quiet version, Sydney's Harbour fireworks are the obvious mainland counterpart on almost exactly the same calendar — some visitors split a trip between the two, catching Sydney's fireworks before flying south for the yacht race's arrival and Hobart's own festival stretch a few days later.