Galaxy Games Festival 2026 Fundraiser

Fuelling the Future of Australian Game Development 🚀

Galaxy Games Festival is back for 2026! We are on a mission to champion Australia’s next generation of game developers, digital artists, and audio designers. Following the incredible success of our 2025 event, we need your support to expand our reach, elevate our production, and keep our team going for another year.

Mark Your Calendars: This campaign goes live on 4 July 2026 at 12:00 PM AEST. Join our exclusive online livestream event featuring a retrospective broadcast of last year's industry talks. The campaign link will be dropped live in chat during the stream! Get your FREE tickets here for the live stream: https://events.humanitix.com/galaxy-games-festival-2025-re-watch-party

What is the funding for?

Organising a festival of this scale requires dedicated resources. As a lean, independent team of volunteers, every dollar pledged directly funds the infrastructure needed to elevate Galaxy Games Festival 2026 and sustain future community-driven initiatives.

Your contributions will fund:

Exhibition Equipment: Enhancing physical booths, hardware setups, and display equipment for our student showcases.

Hybrid Broadcasting: Upgrading livestream equipment to deliver a studio-grade digital experience for remote attendees worldwide.

Speaker Support: Assisting travel and logistics for industry professionals sharing their expertise.

Operational Costs: Securing venue amenities, safety protocols, and volunteer support tokens.

Review our detailed breakdown below in the Budget Overview section for absolute transparency.

What is Galaxy Games Festival About?

Galaxy Games Festival is the premier launchpad for emerging game developers, digital creators, and studios within Australia.

We bring together ambitious students and independent game developers spanning programming, interactive design, art, and music to showcase their projects. Attendees can play unreleased builds, network with peers, and see the creative vision driving tomorrow's local industry.

Alongside player showcases, the festival hosts a curated lineup of guest lectures. Industry veterans across game design, 3D animation, academic research, and audio production pull back the curtain on what it takes to build a career in interactive entertainment.

Format: Hybrid event (Attend live in-person or stream online).

Admission: 100% Free to ensure accessible games education for everyone.

When: Late August 2026 (Full-day Saturday event; exact date announced soon!).

Where: 12 Wally’s Walk, Macquarie University (Wallumattagal Campus), Macquarie Park NSW 2113.

Learn More: galaxygamesfest.com

What will be at the Exhibition Floor?

The Exhibition Floor is the beating heart of the festival. It is a high-energy showcase where students, fresh graduates, and independent studios debut their latest builds.

Play & Test 

Get hands-on with innovative indie prototypes and polished student capstone projects.

Network

Connect directly with emerging talent, recruiters, and creative collaborators.

Discover

Immerse yourself in student portfolio galleries featuring animation reels, concept art, and original soundtracks.

Celebrating Our 2025 Milestones

Our community proved that local emerging talent is hungrier than ever. In 2025, Galaxy Games Festival successfully brought together over 100 local developers, students, and hobbyists on a packed venue floor. The event featured 15+ indie dev teams showcasing live interactive game builds, supported by 15+ active volunteers and 10+ industry speakers from across Australia who delivered masterclasses and portfolio critiques.

Help us double these numbers and make an even bigger impact for 2026!

Our Speakers, Team, and Volunteers

A great festival requires deep industry insight. Our speakers travel from across the country to answer your critical questions: How do you break into the local industry? What makes a portfolio catch an art director's eye? What does a production workflow actually look like? There is an invaluable takeaway for everyone.

While our industry guests and organising committee generously donate their time, building a professional-grade convention floor demands financial support. By backing this campaign, you become a stakeholder in Australia's creative tech ecosystem. Check out our milestone goals below to see exactly how your contribution turns our vision into reality.

Our 2025 Team and Volunteers

Meet our organiser team and volunteers that help make this event happen. Though they provide their free time to make this a great event we still need some funding to support what we do. Be part of our story and help towards our funding goals. More details about our funding goals and milestones below in the Budget Overview.

Join Our Journey—Become a Contributor Today!

Contribution Options

The Shadow Warrior (No Reward)
Starting at $1
Want to back the mission quietly from the sidelines? Choose your own contribution amount to support our emerging developers completely anonymously. We thank you, heroes of the shadows, for your vital help from the darkness.

The Hall of Fame (Community Acknowledgement)
Starting at $10
Let us celebrate your generosity! Contribute any amount from $10 to the cause, and we will proudly display your name on our official digital Acknowledgement Page for the entire industry to see.
(Note: To maintain a safe and welcoming space for our community, we reserve the right to remove any names deemed inappropriate, offensive, or harmful)

Campaign Milestones & Stretch Goals

To bring the Galaxy Games Festival 2026 to life, we have structured our funding goals around the direct operational costs of the event. Every single dollar raised goes directly toward supporting the developers, volunteers, and infrastructure that make this community ecosystem thrive.

Here is exactly how your contribution elevates the festival experience:

Core Funding Goals

• $600 – The Baseline: Essential Monitor Hire 🖥️
  Secures additional high-quality display monitors for our exhibition floor, ensuring projects are showcased in crisp, professional resolutions. + Previous Tiers
• $800 – Fuelling the Team: Speaker & Volunteer Hospitality ☕
  Adds full morning tea catering for the core engine of our festival—our hard-working volunteer crew, staff, and traveling industry guest speakers. + Previous Tiers
• $900 – Supporting Creators: Exhibitor Morning Tea 🥐
  Expands morning tea catering to include all of our student and indie exhibitors, keeping our creators energized as they pitch and demo on the floor. + Previous Tiers
• $1,000 – Global Reach: Premium Streaming Infrastructure 🎥
  Unlocks the budget to hire studio-grade streaming equipment. This ensures our remote audience and digital attendees experience clear audio and high-definition video during live panel discussions. + Previous Tiers

Ultimate Stretch Goals

• $2,000 – The Power Lunch: Unified Crew Catering 🥪
  Provides full, catered lunch packages for our entire operational backbone, including all staff, volunteers, speakers, and exhibitors (excludes general public attendees). + Previous Tiers
• $2,600 – Unity On the Floor: Dedicated Volunteer Uniforms 👕
  Funds high-visibility branded uniforms for our event volunteer squad, making it easy for attendees and exhibitors to find help on a busy floor. + Previous Tiers
• $3,000+ – The Ultimate Festival Experience: Community Lunch Event 🍕
  The dream milestone. Reaching this tier allows us to fully cater lunch for our general public attendees as well, turning the festival into a fully hosted networking experience for everyone in the room. + Previous Tiers
• Beyond the Horizon – Future Proofing & Community Growth 🚀
  Any extra funds raised beyond our stretch goals will directly finance crucial event essentials (such as custom badges, lanyards, and signage printing) and secure the baseline capital needed to anchor future game community events.
  + Previous Tiers