Ignite Talks Sydney 2026

🎤 Sydney's festival of fast and furious ideas is back for 2026!

Ignite Talks Sydney is returning to the Oxford Art Factory on Tuesday 27 October 2026, with its famously fast-paced and fun presentations that are guaranteed to blow your mind and enlighten your thinking.

🤯 There is only one rule at Ignite Talks Sydney - enlighten us but make it quick!

Ignite Talks has become a staple fixture on Sydney’s cultural calendar thanks to its underground-music-venue setting and white-knuckle presentation format:

15 speakers:
each talk is exactly 5 minutes
with exactly 20 slides
that auto-advance in exactly 15 seconds

The result is a fast-paced, high-energy evening designed to keep speakers on their toes and audiences engaged from start to finish. Equal parts entertainment and inspiration, Ignite Talks proves that great ideas don’t need hours — just the right stage. So bring your work fam and your home fam, your sports team and your trivia team; friend or foe – everyone’s welcome and everyone’s in for an epic night of high-energy talks that will leave them inspired, enlightened and motivated.

This year’s speakers

Anna-Maria Rochester – What we’ve learned from hostage negotiators and how they handle stressful situations.

Bob Harris – Sex, death and fabulous prizes: Bob Harris has won hundreds of thousands of dollars on US quiz game shows – he has tips 🥳

Liam Jordan – Turnbuckles and the power of choice: legendary professional wrestler Lee Morrow shares his journey: suplexes, tragedy and the choices that define us.

Mark Rhodes – 15 years of photographing naked people, Mark has notes.

Kirstin Reblin – Tiny bug. Big storm: A healthy person has a thousand wishes; a sick person has only one – what happens when life suddenly changes course?

Ned Dickson – Without stories, what are we? Telling stories is telling history, Ned is a creator and walking tour guide and knows the ingredients of a great story that will survive time.

Therese Frangie –  The cognitive load of decision-making. CEO, mum and ridiculously high achiever Therese Frangie challenges us to think differently about where we place our decision making effort.

Richard Crowle – Ready enough: readiness isn’t having every answer, it’s simply knowing enough to make the next call.

Mark Skelsey – Award winning author Mark Skelsey shares the real story of the community that battled to build the iconic Inner West Greenway.

Lana Shaba – Confidence: 10, Experience: 0… doing it anyway, a guide

Gina Johansen – Is comfort making us weaker? Adventurer and extreme endurance athlete Gina Johansen reports back from extreme discomfort.

Kieran Hennig – Opening minds: psychedelics

Jane Turner – It’s never too late to have a happy childhood: Author Jane Turner talks about her Alzheimer’s Disease diagnosis and her surprising insights.

Jen Marshall – Overachieving pets: how strategic management tools wrecked my midlife crisis and how i fixed it.

… and the return of the Ignite improv legend, Steve Kimmens!

🕕 Doors at 6pm for a 7pm start. See you at Oxford Art Factory, Sydney!

Please note that Ignite Sydney is for over-18s only as it is held in a licensed venue.