Mayoral Column – Real Festival set to light up the Nepean River

Wednesday, 2 September 2026

The Nepean River will again come alive for Penrith City Council’s popular Real Festival from 11-13 September. Council is proud to continue delivering this flagship event at Tench Reserve, Jamisontown. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate the river as one of our greatest assets while bringing our community together.

Last year’s event attracted a record 50,000 attendees over three days and Council looks forward to welcoming more residents and visitors in 2026. I always enjoy exploring Real Festival with my family and I encourage you to come along because there really is something for everyone.

The banks of the river will be transformed with creative displays that you can interact with, live music from talented acts and roving performers. There will also be hands-on workshops including Lego building, origami and a glow-in-the-dark community art mural.

There’ll be plenty of market stalls to support small businesses and more than 20 food and drink stallholders offering flavours from around the world.

Once the sun sets, a laser show will light up our beautiful river every 30 minutes and on Sunday, people can try free on-water activities like dragon boat racing and paddleboarding and enjoy a free cruise on the iconic Nepean Belle Paddlewheeler.

Festivities will run from 4pm-10pm on Friday and Saturday, and 10am-4pm on Sunday. To keep our community safe, there will be traffic changes in place during this time, as well as a shuttle bus service to get people to and from the event. Visit realfestival.com.au to plan your visit and for more information.

Real Festival and the Tench Reserve upgrade are two of the many outcomes from the Our River Master Plan 2013, which responded to community feedback and aimed to revitalise and celebrate the river.

We recognise that the river is a significant part of Penrith's identity and are focused on the future of its transformation. Council's Draft Our River Plan 2026-46 outlines the next steps in our vision for the river corridor, which you can read and share your thoughts on at yoursaypenrith.com.au/our-river-plan.

You can also learn more in person at Council’s stall during Real Festival.

Cr Todd Carney

Mayor of Penrith

Information contained within this news release was correct as at Wednesday, 2 September 2026.