First event · October 2027

One Day. One Screen.
One Haunted 1920s Cinema.

Before the main festival in 2028, we're running a pilot — a single day of horror at Majestic Theatre Pomona, a hand-cranked-projector cinema built in the 1920s in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

The Venue: A Hundred-Year-Old Cinema.

The Majestic Theatre Pomona is one of Australia's oldest continually operating cinemas. Around 250 seats, original brickwork, vintage projection, the kind of place where the building does most of the atmospheric work for you. We won't need to bring in much fog — a hundred years of dust does fine.

What's On.

Three feature horror films programmed across a long day, day into night.
Shorts blocks between features — local horror, weird-fiction shorts, things that didn't get a wide release.
The Haunted Usher, our MC for the day. A ghoulish long-dead cinema usher who's been working his shift for a hundred years and doesn't quite know it. Hosts the entire day in character — introduces films, opens shorts blocks, gently menaces the audience between sessions.
A mini opening ceremony after the first film — a short theatrical moment with a brief musical number. The first miniature version of what the festival's 2028 Saturday-sunset opening ceremony will eventually become.
Horror trivia at the Pomona Hotel across the road during the dinner break. Hosted by the Haunted Usher (or a co-host) and tied to the films we screened that day.
A food vendor outside, ideally something themed.
Carnival-cinema set dressing throughout the venue — period-appropriate, slightly off, in keeping with the building.

When's It On?

October 2027 — specific weekend to be confirmed. Get on the mailing list and you'll be told the second the date locks.

Why a Pilot at All?

The pilot is the warm-up — the festival's rehearsal. It lets us test programming, ticketing, theatrical staging, atmosphere, and audience response at a scale where mistakes are cheap. Everything that goes right becomes Year 1 muscle memory. Everything that goes wrong gets fixed before we scale up to a three-day festival at the Showgrounds the following October.

Be the First to Know When Tickets Go Live.

The pilot will sell out. It's 250 seats.