# Groundwater 2026: a free Broadbeach festival, a quiet Main Beach base > Groundwater Country Music Festival returns to Broadbeach on 16 to 18 October 2026. Free, sprawling across more than a dozen stages. Two acres of garden between you and the rest of the Gold Coast remains the right answer. - Tag: Travel tips - Published: 2026-05-04 --- Most weekends, the case for Main Beach over Broadbeach is the calm. On the third weekend in October, the case sharpens. The **Groundwater Country Music Festival** returns to Broadbeach on **16, 17 and 18 October 2026** for its thirteenth edition, sprawled across more than a dozen stages set up in parks, on the mall, along the boulevard and inside the suburb's pubs and bars. The 2025 weekend drew more than 60,000 people through Broadbeach by the organisers' count. The whole thing is free. Contessa sits eight kilometres north of the festival precinct, a single block back from the sand on the river side of Main Beach. That distance, and the two acres of garden it ends in, is the booking case in a sentence. ## A free festival across Broadbeach Groundwater is run by [Experience Gold Coast](https://corporate.experiencegoldcoast.com/) and supported by the Queensland Government, and it sits unusually among Australian music festivals: no ticketed perimeter, no main-arena gates, no wristbands. The format uses Broadbeach itself. Stages are set up across Kurrawa Park beside the surf life saving club, along the pedestrianised mall on Victoria Avenue, in the centre of the Oracle Boulevard mall area south of there, and on Surf Parade one block back from the beach. Beyond the four anchor stages, the program runs across a long list of bars, pubs and venues throughout the suburb, including The Star Gold Coast at the southern end of the precinct. The 2025 program ran fourteen stages and venues with more than forty artists. The 2026 lineup will be announced by the organisers in the months before October; the [official festival site](https://groundwatercmf.com/) and the Groundwater CMF mobile app carry the day-by-day schedule and the precinct map when they land. Country is the brief, but the broader weekend includes line dancing for beginners on the Beach Deck, a bluegrass breakfast on Sunday morning, the Farm Angels charity tent at Kurrawa Park, and country-themed cocktails on the mall. It is family-friendly in the genuine sense rather than the reassuring-marketing sense. It is also a daytime-and-evening festival rather than a single-block-of-hours headline show. Stages run in parallel; you walk between them. The character of the weekend changes with the streets you pick. ## The walk and the tram from one block back from the sand From Contessa, the route into Broadbeach is a single tram ride. The **Gold Coast light rail (G:link)** stop nearest the residence is roughly a ten-minute walk inland, and from there the line runs south through Surfers Paradise, Cavill Avenue, Northcliffe and Florida Gardens before reaching **Broadbeach North**, the station the festival uses as its official precinct drop-off. The walk into Kurrawa Park from Broadbeach North is two minutes; the mall stage is three. A **go explore pass** from Translink covers unlimited light rail and bus travel on weekends and public holidays for a single flat day rate. It is the most useful piece of paper you can carry across festival Saturday and Sunday. Current pricing and the published timetable are on [ridetheg.com.au](https://ridetheg.com.au/); Translink usually lays on additional services across festival weekends. If a guest does drive in, **free undercover basement parking** is included with every apartment, no booking required. The local advice for festival weekend is the same as anywhere else, though: leave the car in the basement on Friday afternoon and take the tram. Broadbeach traffic across the weekend is slow and the road network around the precinct closes in pieces.
Beach with swimmers and waders along shoreline with breaking waves
## Two acres of garden between you and the noise There is a particular shape to a long, hot festival day in Broadbeach. The mall warms up by mid-morning, the Surf Parade row by mid-afternoon, the headline outdoor stages by dusk. By the time the last set ends, most of the precinct is walking the same five-block radius looking for water, food and a tram. Sleeping inside that radius is a defensible choice; staying just outside it is a quieter one. Coming back to Main Beach on a festival evening is the booking case the rest of the year hints at and this weekend makes plain. The tram drops you four stops north at Main Beach, a few minutes' walk from a residence set in two acres of landscaped gardens on the river side of the suburb. The pool deck is quiet. The marina is quiet. The wraparound balcony, regardless of which apartment you have booked, is quieter still. For a festival guest, the building's facilities run on the right rhythm: a **large indoor heated pool** for after a long, hot day, a **large outdoor pool** in the gardens for the morning before, an outdoor and an indoor spa, a sauna, and a full-size tennis court at the back of the gardens for guests who want to move on Sunday morning before the festival opens. Mornings on Tedder Avenue, five minutes' walk away, run on a local pace rather than festival-weekend volume; the bakery and the cafes there do not change pace because Broadbeach has filled. Inside the apartment, the practical layer matters more than usual on festival weekend. Every Contessa apartment is **178 square metres or larger** with a **wraparound balcony**, a **fully equipped kitchen** (oven, stovetop, dishwasher, full-size fridge), a **full in-apartment laundry**, and **two bathrooms**, each with a bath and shower. A real Sunday breakfast on the balcony before the bluegrass set, rather than queueing for a cafe table on the mall. A late dinner cooked at home after a long Saturday in the sun, rather than fighting for a table on Surf Parade with the rest of the precinct. ## A few practical notes Apartments at Contessa are individually furnished by their owners, so each one has its own character; views vary from ocean to river, marina, garden and pool depending on the residence you book. The ten apartments released for holiday stays from the residence of 124 are presented individually on the site, by apartment number, so you can see the exact apartment you will stay in rather than a stock photo of a category. The most comfortable booking shape for festival weekend is **Thursday to Monday**. Thursday is a relaxed arrival before the precinct is fully set up. Friday is the lighter of the three festival days. Saturday and Sunday are the full programs. Monday is a slow coffee on Tedder, an unhurried walk along the sand, and a flight home with the city back to itself. Full payment is taken 48 hours before arrival, not at booking; check-in is 2 to 5 pm and check-out 8 to 10 am. ## Book for 16 to 18 October [**Check availability and reserve your apartment**](/accommodation/index.md), or read more about [the residence and its facilities](/stay/index.md) and the two acres of landscaped gardens on the river. For the 2026 lineup, the festival map, the stage-by-stage schedule and the official app, visit the [Groundwater Country Music Festival](https://groundwatercmf.com/) site.