Festivals Elain Would Love: A Springtime Tour of Australia

If there’s one ACOTAR character we’d trust to plan a springtime road trip, it’s Elain Archeron. So, with spring officially here, we’re taking a trip around Australia to find the flower festivals we think would earn her approval.

Queensland

Naturally, we’re starting a little closer to home for us here at Fae Style, with the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers. First held in 1949, the Carnival has had plenty of time to perfect the art of putting on a flower show, and this year it returns from 18 September to 5 October. Across three weeks, Toowoomba will be home to more than 40 million petals and over 80 events, including floral displays, garden tours, food, markets and, of course, the Grand Central Floral Parade.

If wandering through gardens overflowing with flowers isn’t quite enough for you, Laurel Bank Park is also home to a wisteria arbour, thousands of spring blooms and, wonderfully, a Flower Cosplay Photoshoot. We feel Elain would approve of this!

Our team will be heading out to the Carnival this year, so we hope to see some of you there!

You can learn more here https://tcof.com.au/

New South Wales

If you love tulips, Bowral might be the place to be this September.

Tulip Time returns to Corbett Gardens from 11 September to 5 October, with 80,000 hand-planted tulips and annuals (Elain doesn't even have the energy for that!) transforming the gardens for spring. With a new theme every year, 2026 is the year for Together We Bloom, celebrating community, connection and, quite simply, the joy of spring.

The garden beds have names to match, including Pause and Bloom, Stop and Smell the Tulips, Kindness Grows Here and You Belong Here. Honestly, with names this cheesy, we’re starting to wonder if Lucien designed the gardens specifically for Elain.

There will also be live entertainment, workshops, boutique market stalls and food throughout the festival, so you can make a whole day of it rather than simply arriving, admiring a tulip and heading home.

Oh, and did we mention there are free tulip bulbs?

You can learn more here https://www.tuliptime.com.au/

Australian Capital Territory

Next stop: Canberra, where they're apparently not interested in doing spring by halves.

Floriade returns to Commonwealth Park from 12 September to 11 October with more than one million blooms. This year's theme is Feast of Flowers, bringing together flowers, food and the rituals of gathering and sharing a meal. Honestly, flowers and snacks is already a fairly convincing argument for the road trip. But then we looked at the program....You can tour the gardens, watch live performances, make floral bookmarks and other flower-inspired crafts, ride the Ferris wheel over the gardens and even visit Gnome Knoll, where you can paint your own garden gnome. There are characters called Basil and Sage, and at that point we really don't think we need to sell this one any further.

You can learn more here https://floriadeaustralia.com/

Victoria

If Elain were choosing just one event from this list, we suspect the Tesselaar Tulip Festival might be a serious contender. Running from 12 September to 11 October in the Dandenong Ranges, the festival brings together more than one million spring flowers, with tulips as far as the eye can see. There are different events throughout the month too, including Turkish Weekend, Dutch Weekend, live music, food, performances and even the opportunity to try your hand (or feet) at clog dancing.

But most importantly, there is a Fairy Garden. Hidden amongst the flowers is a magical glade said to be home to a village of fairies, complete with a fairy storyteller sharing tales of the fae who live there. So yes, naturally, this one made our list.

There is also apparently the biggest clog in the world, which has absolutely nothing to do with Elain, flowers or fantasy, but we felt you deserved to know.

You can learn more here https://tulipfestival.com.au/

Western Australia

We’re swapping perfectly planted tulip beds for something a little wilder in Western Australia. The Ravensthorpe Wildflower Show has celebrated the region's incredible native flowers since 1982 and returns from 7 to 19 September this year. Rather than wandering through carefully designed flower beds, this is your chance to discover the enormous variety of wildflowers that grow naturally throughout the Ravensthorpe region. The Wildflower Show itself sits at the heart of a larger Spring Festival, with activities encouraging visitors to get out and explore the surrounding region while everything is in bloom.

So if you prefer more whimsy, wild and mysterious meadow vibes, this one is the one for you! You may also get a chance to head to the herbarium where flower specimens are pressed and filed!

You can learn more here https://wildflowersravensthorpe.org.au/

Tasmania

We couldn’t take Elain on a flower-filled road trip around Australia and leave Tasmania behind.

From 26 September, Table Cape Tulip Farm opens its gates for the spring season, with fields of colourful tulips overlooking Tasmania’s north-west coast. The farm is also at the heart of Wynyard’s annual Bloomin’ Tulips Festival, which has been celebrating the arrival of spring for more than 30 years with food, music, artists and festivities. The festival itself falls in October, but the tulips begin welcoming visitors in late September.

Alongside wandering through the tulips, you can stop for Devonshire tea and take home cut flowers or potted tulips. Just remember this is a working farm, so sensible shoes are recommended. Perhaps leave the Spring Court gown at home for this one.

You can learn more here https://www.tablecapetulipfarm.com.au/

South Australia

South Australia is giving us a slightly different kind of flower-filled day with the SA Spring Garden Festival, held at the Mount Pleasant Showgrounds on 19 September. If you embody the energy of Elain and love spending time in the garden, then you’ll want to head here. It’s a one-day event, so make sure you don’t miss out!

Running alongside the Mount Pleasant Farmers Market, the festival brings together plants, garden displays, live music, garden experts and plenty of inspiration for your own little patch of green. Whether you have an elaborate cottage garden or one herb desperately clinging to life on the kitchen windowsill (that's us...guilty!), we feel you’re welcome here.

And considering Elain’s gardening abilities, perhaps we should all take notes.

You can learn more here https://www.saspringgardenfestival.com.au/

Northern Territory

Here we are, our last stop on the tour, and we weren’t entirely sure what we were going to find here. When we went looking for a September flower festival in the Northern Territory, the answer, apparently, was competitive orchids.

Now, Elain may have planned this road trip, but the moment we mentioned there was a competition, Nesta packed her bags.

The Nightcliff Orchid Society Spring Show takes place in Darwin on 12 and 13 September, bringing together orchid growers and enthusiasts for a weekend of spectacular displays, growing advice and, yes, an orchid competition. Better still, you don’t need to be some sort of master orchid grower to enter. The competition is open to anyone with a flowering orchid they’d like to put forward for judging.

This is possibly the easiest little spring outing on our list.

You can learn more here https://northernterritory.com/darwin-and-surrounds/events/the-nightcliff-orchid-society---spring-show

P.S. We don't think Nesta would win.