A NEW YEAR
With the added scorch in the air, the Year of the Fire Horse would suggest that success comes swiftly, whilst perhaps we still ease and relax before we begin to gallop.
Launching FRINGE WORLD, Lunar New Year, and Perth Festival – just to name a few, our city is alive and bursting with the greatest gifts of culture, the arts, and performance.
Here we sit, right in the heart of it all.
Use us as your festival base – a before, during and after, or simply stay for the
long haul as we know you can.
Welcome back dear Members – 2026 has officially begun.
Image – Jo Darbyshire, Little Lake Chain, 2024, oil on canvas, 150 x 150cm
Jo Darbyshire is represented by art Collective WA
FESTIVAL FESTIVAL FESTIVAL
With so much to choose from, festival season is fuller than a 1980’s Samboy show bag. Here’s a few tips to whet your festi-whistle…
FRINGE WORLD – HARD TO SWALLOW Reuben Kaye
Internationally acclaimed, multi-award-winning cabaret icon Reuben Kaye returns with his signature blend of razor-sharp wit, high-octane vocals, and unapologetic social commentary. Hilarious, biting and bold, Kaye is back to rip into the world with the glamour, guts and glitter you’ve come to expect.
WHEN: 28 January – 12 February
WHERE: The Theatre at Liberty
More detail and tickets HERE
FRINGE WORLD – MAMA ALTO – TRANSCENDENT
One of Australia’s finest cabaret artistes, the velvet-voiced Mama Alto, returns to Perth & Fringe World. With musical director Joshua Haines, she weaves an exquisite show that epitomises her past fifteen years of performances around the country and the world.
WHEN: Sunday 15 February
WHERE: The Ellington Jazz Club
More detail and tickets HERE
HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
For the first time, Head On Photo Festival takes over Perth’s CBD, presenting 14 exhibitions by photographers from Australia and around the world, including the winning works from the WA Life Photo Awards. From striking portraiture and street photography to photojournalism, documentary, and experimental work, the festival transforms Hay St Mall, Yagan Square, Forrest Place, Elizabeth Quay and more into a city-wide gallery.
WHEN: February 1 – March 1
More detail HERE
PERTH CHINESE NEW YEAR FAIR
The Perth Chinese New Year Fair offers a rich and immersive experience filled with culture, colour and entertainment. Enjoy a wide range of activities, including cultural arts and craft workshops, competitions, games and rides, community stalls, and an exciting program of live performances. Look out for the highly anticipated lion and dragon dances, always a highlight of the Lunar New Year festivities.
WHEN: Sunday 22 February, 12-9pm
WHERE: James Street & Lake Street Northbridge
More detail HERE
PERTH FESTIVAL – THE EMBASSY
With this location right next door to the State Buildings, there is no excuse.
WHEN: 13 February – 1 March
WHERE: Perth Town Hall
More detail and tickets HERE
PERTH FESTIVAL HUB – EAST PERTH POWER STATION
An epic industrialised space right on the edge of the Swan, with free and ticketed events. A powerhouse space that electrifies like no other.
More details HERE
Image: The East Perth Power Station
MELLO HEALTH
We delight in welcoming back Mello Health champion – Dr Gina Messiah, for the first of our 2026 series as she invites Dr Vanessa Hyde-Smith to a round table discussion of Precision Medicine & Nutrigenomics.
“We are all unique, having inherited varied combinations of a genetic blueprint from our parents at conception. This blueprint in part codes for specific enzymes and processes our bodies require to function optimally.
We then interact with our environment comprising nutrients, exercise, stressors and chemicals. This results in a complex interplay between our unique genetic processes and environmental factors that can impact our health span and potentially our lifespan.”
Join us to discover Precision Medicine & Nutrigenomics: Unlocking Personalised Pathways to Optimal Health, addressing a multitude of connected topics from weight management, dementia risk, gut health, detoxification, vitamin deficiencies and exercise response, fertility, inflammatory predisposition, and so many more.
Let’s start 2026 off with a health kick that lasts.
WHEN: Tuesday 24 February, 6pm
WHERE: Mello House Sitting Room
RSVP essential HERE by Tuesday 17 February
Dr Vanessa Hyde-Smith BIO
Guests most welcome.
ART. MUSIC. TRAVEL.
If your intrepid adventuring, curiosity and passion runs deep enough, you’ll know that art, music and travel are undoubtably connected through the innermost vein of the European Renaissance and Baroque age.
Join respected art historian Franca Maria Berti, with music critic and travel writer Will Yeoman, as they explore the history and connections between art and music in Italy, France, Spain and the Low Countries during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
Including rich audio-visual content, with a plethora of images and musical enticements, alongside well-versed travel tips and tricks for art and music lovers, this afternoon is sure to insite a serious session with your travel agent.
Franca Maria Berti is an Art Historian and Consultant living and working in Perth. Her consultancy, Franca Loves Art, provides extensive advice on collecting artwork including advising to those new to art and art enthusiasts with more experience in the artworld through her art advisory and education.
Will Yeoman is a classical guitarist and music critic with more than 25 years’ experience writing for publications such as Gramophone (UK), Limelight (Australia) and Goldberg (Spain). He has also curated anthologies, and written booklet essays, for record companies including Decca, Naxos and Linn Records.
“The Baroque is the final stage in all art, when art flaunts and squanders its resources.” Johann Heinrich Schubert.
WHEN: Wednesday 25 February, 6pm
WHERE: Mello House Lounge
RSVP essential HERE by Monday 16 February
Guests most welcome.
GIN SLING
In a tribute to the ultimate aristocratic, anti-malarian fix, House Manager, Orkhan Mammadov, has curated a new Mello House Bar menu in dedication to that unctuously refreshing, heatwave-abating legend that is The Gin & Tonic.
Whether you prefer the citrusy sherbet, the floral fancies, or those decidedly peppery hints, (combined with all those botanical best bits), this menu is ripe for a sundowner worthy of an extended afternoon’s indulgence.
Do allow us to make all of your G&T dreams come true.
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Ask for the Gin & Tonic Menu at the Bar
PERSONALISED GIN & TONIC TASTINGS: Please enquire HERE
PHILOSOPHY HOUSE
And we’re off….
With a solidly requested investigation into the magnitudes of religion in 2025, much discussion was shared with House Philosopher, Professor James Arvanitakis.
In a blessed return, we welcome back James to uphold and continue the philosophical essence of Mello House, in a year that will quite clearly be unlike any other before.
Reminders, requests, and readings will be shared prior to all sessions, so get out those diaries and block these dates in ahead of time:
Monday 9 March, 6pm
Monday 13 April, 6pm
Monday 18 May, 6pm
Monday 8 June, 6pm
WHEN: As above, 6pm
WHERE: Mello House Lounge
RSVP essential HERE
Guests most welcome
Image: Professor James Arvanitakis BIO.
BOOKISH
Welcome back dear readers. We have had so much perusing time over the past festive months that we are thrilled to reconnect through page turning, discourse and discussion.
In the first for 2026, “the “final” book from the Booker Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Julian Barnes, Departure(s) is a work of fiction – but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Departure(s) is the story of a man called Stephen and a woman called Jean, who fall in love when they are young and again when they are old. It is the story of an elderly Jack Russell called Jimmy, enviably oblivious to his own mortality.
It is also the story of how the body fails us, whether through age, illness, accident or intent. And it is the story of how experiences fade into anecdotes, and then into memory. Does it matter if what we remember really happened? Or does it just matter that it mattered enough to be remembered?”
Multi award-winning author, Julian Barnes is now eighty years wise – imagine all that he has to say.
WHEN: Tuesday 24 March, 6pm
WHERE: Mello House Sitting Room
RSVP essential HERE by Tuesday 17 March
Purchase Departure(s) HERE
Guests most welcome.
SONATO ALLIANCE
Some exciting news for the world traveller. Mello House – in alignment with Sonato Alliance, have expanded our worldwide reciprocal network. This means you will have greater access to reciprocal clubs of interest to you wherever in the world you may travel.
In order to arrange access, simply follow the link HERE to create your Mello House Member Profile for the Sonato Reciprocal Club network.
After your profile is created, we then verify you as a Mello House Member. Once access is granted, you will be able to connect directly with any of the approved Reciprocal Clubs and personally arrange a visit to complement your travel itinerary.
NB: The existing Reciprocal Club network established directly by Mello House – including Lawson Flats, still requires an e-introduction via the Mello House Front Desk HERE.
MELLOTIVO
FEBRUARY 2026
Every Friday from 5:30pm
“Your beauty is beyond compare.” Jolene by Dolly Parton
FRIDAY 6 FEBRUARY – HANS FIANCE
One man, his voice and that crystal grand.
It’s the first Friday of the month. Why not?
FRIDAY 13 FEBRUARY – HARLEM NOCTURNES
Grand piano and double bass with Sir Chris and Dr Nick.
The ultimate jazz combo.
FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY – RUSSELL HOLMES & TOM BERKMANN
The finest music on the cellophane grand with delicious double bass.
Welcome home Russell and Tom – we’ve missed you.FEBRUARY 27 – SIMONE CRADDOCK & TOM SALLEO
Bringing an array of the greatest tunes with those sweet, dulcet Simone-tones
right to the glory of the grand piano.
Friday reminds us why….
