South Bank is about to get a lot more crowded, and a lot louder. The Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, that ornate wood and mirror-glass pavilion that seems to appear out of nowhere every festival season, is setting up again as the beating heart of the Brisbane Festival Village. This year it’s hosting two very different acts under one roof: the international hit stage show The Choir of Man, and Brisbane’s own family comedy troupe The Listies. If you’ve never been inside a Spiegeltent, picture a traveling European dance hall from the 1920s, all timber, velvet and mirrors, built to hold a few hundred people close enough to the stage that a show feels like a shared secret rather than a performance from a distance.
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What’s Actually Playing at the Spiegeltent
The Choir of Man has built a reputation on a simple premise done well: nine blokes, a pub, and a night of songs that swing from Sam Cooke to Sigur Rós, all sung live with barely a hint of choreography beyond the natural sway of people enjoying themselves. It’s part gig, part theatre, and it’s toured through the UK, the US and Australia picking up the kind of word of mouth that keeps venues booking it back. The Listies, on the other hand, are a Brisbane-grown act that’s spent over a decade making noise, literally, for kids and their exhausted parents. Their brand of comedy leans hard into chaos, audience participation and a willingness to look ridiculous for a laugh, which tends to land just as well with the adults dragged along as it does with the kids.
Why the Spiegeltent Suits Both
There’s something about the tent itself that makes both shows work better than they would in a standard theatre. The intimacy cuts both ways. For The Choir of Man, it means the audience can feel the floor shake a little when the whole cast belts out a chorus. For The Listies, it means front row kids are close enough to get pulled into the bit, which is half the appeal of a show built around unpredictability.
Dates, Tickets and What We Know So Far
Brisbane Festival runs from September 4 to 26, with the Festival Village at South Bank acting as its anchor point for the full three weeks. Both shows sit inside that window, though exact nightly schedules and individual session times are best checked directly through the Brisbane Festival box office once the full program drops, since Spiegeltent lineups often run in rotation with other acts sharing the same stage across different nights. Ticket prices for past Spiegeltent shows at this festival have typically sat in the range most people expect for a mid-size theatre outing, but we’d rather point you to the official ticketing page than guess a number that might be wrong by the time you read this.
Getting There Without the Headache
South Bank during Brisbane Festival is not a place you want to be circling for parking at 7:45pm on a Friday. The precinct is walkable from South Bank and South Brisbane train stations, and the free CityCat and ferry services along the river drop you within a few minutes’ walk of the Festival Village entrance. If you’re coming from the north side, that ferry trip alone is worth doing once just for the view of the city lit up, which the festival leans into hard with its river-based lighting displays running most nights of the program.
A Tip for Families
If you’re taking kids to The Listies, get there early. Not for seating, since the Spiegeltent runs assigned tickets, but because the Festival Village itself has food stalls, market lights and enough general atmosphere that arriving thirty minutes ahead turns a theatre outing into a proper night out rather than a dash from car to seat and back again.
Who Should Actually Go
These aren’t shows aimed at the same crowd, and that’s sort of the point of programming them into the same tent across the same festival window. The Choir of Man suits a date night or a group of friends after a few drinks and a genuinely good sing-along, the kind of show where you leave humming something you didn’t expect to know all the words to. The Listies is squarely built for families, particularly parents of primary-school-aged kids who want something loud and funny without a three-hour runtime testing everyone’s patience. Neither show requires any prior knowledge of the performers to enjoy, which is part of why both keep getting booked into festival programs year after year.
What Sells Out First
Family comedy sessions at festivals like this one have a habit of selling out faster than the evening adult shows, mostly because school holiday timing and weekend matinees only offer a handful of sessions compared to a nightly adult program running for weeks. If The Listies is on your list, don’t leave it until the week of the show to check availability.
The Bottom Line for This Festival Season
Brisbane Festival has built its reputation on exactly this kind of pairing: big spectacle events like Riverfire and Bright Nights drawing the crowds down to the river, while smaller, more intimate programming inside venues like the Spiegeltent gives people a reason to stick around for a second or third night out during the three-week run. The Choir of Man and The Listies are a solid example of that mix working as intended, one show for the adults wanting a night out, one for the families wanting an outing that doesn’t feel like a compromise. Check the official Brisbane Festival site for exact session dates and current ticket availability before you lock in a night, since Spiegeltent programming has a habit of shifting slightly as the festival gets closer to opening week.