Welcome Back, Pookies: Spilt Milk 2025 Review

Bri D
Dec 14, 2025
6 min read

Spilt Milk is back and bigger than ever! After a brief hiatus (and house party) in 2024, the full scale Summer festival has returned to Ballarat, Perth, Canberra, and the Gold Coast with some of its biggest headlining international acts so far. It was wild to see them pull it off at the final stop at Gold Coast/Kombumerri.

The day was jam packed, with a stadium, two large stages, and mini raves galore going off at all hours. If Spilt Milk needs another rest year, it will be well and truly earnt (but please bring back House Party!!). For now, I’ll be replaying my videos and obsessing over the post-festival TikToks.

This is what happened at Spilt Milk 2025 on the Gold Coast/Kombemerri on December 14th, 2025.

THE EVENT

Spilt Milk is relatively young, but has very much become a staple festival, gradually expanding from Canberra out to the far West of Perth and to the Gold Coast in the North. It’s a sellout event with a solid line-up for every iteration. This year’s event saw formidable headliners Kendrick Lamar, Doechii, Dominic Fike, and Sombr - a line-up so promising that many fans felt for sure it was too good to be true. It did feel a bit remiss that out of twelve evening acts across three major stages, only five were Australian, but I’ll leave that thought for the time being.

The extensive grounds of the Gold Coast Sports Precinct were taken over for the sprawling event. As we entered, the stadium loomed over the carpark, which had been made into one of several food stall and bar precincts, closely located to crowd care and first aid. At such a large scale, it would have been great to see at least another of each, located closer to the entrance of the stadium which hosted the festival’s main stage and largest crowded area. The first stage we happened upon was actually Derbyshire, which was nestled snuggly on the side of the grounds and a short walk from the Basquiat tent. Outside the tent, dreamy hammocks swing in the breeze, a tempting reprieve during a day of partying in the sun or the low lights of the tent or hiking across the grounds to and from the stadium (it was like a twenty-minute walk from some areas, insane!).

On the other side of Basquiat Stage was another food market, this one hosting activations by Red Ball and Smirnoff, creating some shaded dance floors for DJs and mini raves to take place. The branding was awesome and we were spoilt for choice for food and drink throughout the festival, including, thankfully, at another food stall area on the opposite side of the stadium. Just outside of this was the Rimmel Bus, with its own DJ, and a makeup team offering full-sized samples and free touch ups!

With gates opening at 11AM, it was crazy that there was barely enough time to explore all of the extra stalls and activations between sets. The sponsorships and partners of the festival did an outstanding job coordinating an incredibly immersive day out for any and all fans of live music. The full day out wasn’t without a few hiccups; some extra shading at the seated areas would not have gone astray and I did hear about shortages of water, though didn’t experience it firsthand as the multiple water tanks scattered throughout the grounds were fine for me. Obviously, 40,000 people or so all leaving at the same time are going to cause congestion and crowding, plus a massive wait time for transport - it’s an unfortunate and unavoidable circumstance but not completely unbearable if you’re prepared to wait a little longer.

OUR DAY

I’m amazed I had time to sit down, with the line-up as big as it was! Unfortunately, a late arrival (a whole half hour!) meant by the time I was in the gates I could only catch the end of the first set in the stadium with South Summit. Of course, I had to get a touch up at the Rimmel Bus and snag some free samples (I’m wearing my new lip gloss as I write this now!).

We took a walk around to navigate ourselves and grab a drink, then partied on at Basquiat before bouncing back and forth between there and Angove, taking the massive trek each time. I’d managed to carve out some time in my day to make a quick outfit change (having learnt my lesson about the Summer sun from Rolling Sets). Between sets at Basquiat, I managed to get a late lunch and swing by Angove to catch The Dreggs.

We spent the evening at Angove, snagging some good grandstand seats away from the pit, which was as overwhelmingly large. The punters down the back on the grass were great fun to watch during the final acts, with way more room to dance, jump and run around than the pit up the front. I took great joy in dancing from my elevated view, missing the chance for a front row spot but gladly surrendering it early so I could see more of my favourite local acts throughout the day.

Speaking of, let’s get a taste of them now…

THE MUSIC

Like I mentioned before, this line-up was heavy on the international acts. The festival had a pretty diverse group of music, with indie pop and rock acts like South Summit, Mia Wray and The Rions early in the day. Opening up on Basquiat and Derbyshire stages were DJ acts Shimmy and Sadboy, getting dancers in quickly to fill up the floor.

A couple of wild card artists really helped make the music seem expansive and encompassing, making sure there was something for everything. From the soulful groove of Don West to the genre-defying kawaii of Ennaria and the country twang of The Dreggs, there was plenty to be discovered during the day. An unfortunate group of clashes meant I only caught the last couple of songs by Rum Jungle, who were impressive from that alone. Genesis Owusu, a later addition to the line-up and a previous Spilt Milk performer, was a highlight of the day and definitely not someone you want to miss next time he’s in town… hopefully soon with the release of a few new songs this year.

The festival was heavy on DJs and rappers as well, which have become staple genres in the Australian music scene, taking over from the indie rock hype of the pre-pandemic era. Baby J, Ninajirachi, and Kessin led an evening rave under the stars at Derbyshire Stage. Across the way at Basquiat, the crowd was insane (purported to be even more hyped than the crowd at the stadium stage) with DJs including Skin On Skin and Restricted closing out the night. If that’s anything to go by it proves that festival crowds aren’t dead yet.

THE FINALE

I spent our sunset session at the stadium with a phenomenal view. I know that the headline spot of a festival is highly coveted, but there’s something to be said about the sunset act. At Angove it was Dominic Fike, but Baby J at Derbyshire would have been a serene experience and from my seat I could see the lights and proscenium arch. As we watched the sunset and spent our evening chilling in the grandstand between Doechii and Kendrick Lamar, I tuned into the interim tracks playing over the speakers. It was almost entirely Australian music and I found myself saying “OMG, I love this song!” and wishing I could have seen that band on the line-up as well.

With tens of thousands of people gathered together for a full day of live music on a scale as large as Spilt Milk 2025 was, there will be some logistical issues. I’ve heard some reasonable concerns from other attendees regarding water supply and accessibility issues and note that there is always room for improvement with regards to safety and accessibility. I hope that Kicks Entertainment will provide patrons with the chance to feedback their experiences and open a dialogue that will strengthen these aspects of festival design.

As for me, despite a few unfortunate set clashes, I had an incredible experience at Spilt Milk. Could there have been a bit more shading? Yes. Could the stadium have been a bit easier to access from the rest of the event? Probably. Was the massive crowd and transport delay irritating? Of course. But these feel like a reasonable trade-off for an unforgettable day of live music and I’ve been in shock of how much fun I had.

The next question is, how will they top this in 2026? It’s hard to imagine how Spilt Milk can get bigger than it was this year, but does it need to? We mistake constant growth for success, when sometimes maintenance – keeping something consistently performing at its current level – is a better indicator of achievement. If Spilt Milk can improve on accessibility by compromising multiple massive international acts, that could be an improvement too. If they can bring back the same level of significance in their 2026 headliners, that would be amazing to experience again! But even if it takes another hiatus and a smaller scale event to regroup and get to that same level of high, it’d be worth it. I’m anxiously excited to see where this festival will go now.