Celebrating a Decade of Discovery: Highlights from World Science Festival Brisbane 2025

In 2025 Queensland Museum celebrated a major milestone: the 10th anniversary of World Science Festival Brisbane.

 

Since 2016, the festival has been connecting the world’s leading scientists and innovators with Australian audiences for 10 days of discovery, curiosity and entertainment, and is proud to celebrate over 2 million attendances and $56M economic impact to Queensland in a decade of WSFB.

 

In 2025, with the theme of Infinite Awe, Brisbane welcomed international scientists, NASA astronaut and flight engineer, Christina Koch who set the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman (328 days) living and working on the International Space Centre, as well as Harvard’s leading genetics researcher, Professor David Sinclair, AO, PhD who is researching how to wind-back the clock on aging.

 

As the largest science festival in the southern hemisphere, WSFB continues to grow through engaging audiences with awe-inspiring moments of the Earth’s wonders and science’s most prolific innovations.

 

In 2025, WSFB welcomed 105,556 attendances to the festival, in a line-up of 86 events and 500 performances at 42 locations throughout Brisbane, Gold Coast and Ipswich.

 

With access and inclusion at the forefront of the event, this year’s festival welcomed 90,225 free attendances to 34 free events, as well as 10 First Nation led events, 23 events that included First Nations participants, and seven First Nations businesses or organisations involved.

 

Supporting the next generation of STEM innovators, 3546 students experienced the festival through its schools programming which included new stage show Epic Engineering, featuring NASA astronaut Christina Koch, deep-sea explorer and Deepsea Challenger designer Ron Allum.

 

New in 2025 were four sold-out Digital Detox events supported by Brisbane City Council | City Parklands, inviting audiences to unplug and reconnect with nature through a series of interactive experiences led by scientific experts and designed to foster mindfulness, curiosity, and ecological appreciation.

 

The festival also showcased the science behind skateboarding with Arena Atomica: Skate-ology, thrilling arena shows featuring world-class Australian skate-boarders performing gravity-defying tricks as Dr Joel Gilmore unpacked the aerodynamics of skating.

 

All of this could not be possible without the destival’s dedicated volunteers – this year 100 volunteers committed 1000 of support to help and guide attendees throughout the festival.

 

Additionally, Queensland Museum and WSFB thanks its major partners, Queensland Government and Tourism Events Queensland, along with committed festival partners who share WSFB’s vision to enrich people’s lives through science, innovation, curiosity and wonder.

 

As WSFB celebrates 10 years in 2025, the next 10 years are shaping up to be incredibly exciting and historic as the festival, with the support from Queensland Museum and its partners works toward Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and showcasing the best of Queensland to a global audience.

 

With the 2025 Brisbane festival over for another year, the attention turns to World Science Festival Queensland’s regional roadshow in bringing Infinite Awe to Townsville, Chinchilla, Ipswich, Toowoomba and Gladstone with free student and community days in each region.

 

To find out more about World Science Festival Brisbane’s impact, read the 2025 In Review Report.