A plant pot is quite a lot to carry when you are already holding a water bottle and a small child’s hand. It is also something a child can be very pleased to take home. At SWELL in 2026, that small piece of making gave a family art outing a purpose beyond the next stretch of walking.
The 2026 Currumbin festival has ended. Books, seedlings and an activity trail were among its ways to bring children into the day. Those finished activities are useful ideas to look back on while the next family programme takes shape.
Start with something they can choose
At Len Wort Park, the Storyfest Beach Library offered books and a place to stop. Its 2026 hours were 9 am–3 pm, with free entry. A story could give tired legs a break or be the first thing a younger child wanted to do.
A few sculptures afterwards could be enough. Ask each person to choose one they want to describe over dinner, rather than trying to get through the whole exhibition. Children do not all need the same reason to enjoy a visit, and one remembered artwork can be a good result.
The festival is returning to Currumbin on 10–19 September 2027, confirmed by the organisers’ next-exhibition announcement. Wait for its children’s listings before deciding what to promise the family. A library visit is a memory of the past programme until a new one is announced.
Leave a hand free for what comes home
The 2026 Seedling Planter Workshop also used Len Wort Park. Children decorated recycled pots and planted seedlings, with Southern Beaches Community Garden. That free activity ran from 10.30 am to 3.30 pm during the finished festival.
Having a bag or a safe place in the car for the pot would have made the journey afterwards easier. It is the sort of small preparation worth doing at the apartment before everyone is wearing sunscreen and asking when you are leaving.
For children who liked collecting, Finding Your Way by BLUSS provided another task in 2026: taking rubbings from plates along the sculpture trail with a purchased SWELL Passport. Any return of that activity, and its materials or cost, would need a new listing.
Keep the family’s distance in mind
Currumbin is an excursion from Viscount, not a walk down the path outside the building. Use the next transport and accessibility advice to plan the route, including pram access and the journey home. In the previous layout, some beach and rock positions were difficult for prams, even where the nearby foreshore path offered an easier view.
There was a closer satellite option in 2026 at Oasis Shopping Centre in Broadbeach. Forest Dwellers by Monte Lupo formed part of that exhibition, which finished on 30 September 2026. It is over too; no next-year Oasis programme has been announced. The old installation page is a record of that visit.
At Viscount, the useful preparation happens in a kitchen with a full-size fridge: lunch packed, drinks ready, then the choice of which activity to try. Two bathrooms and a washing machine and dryer help when everyone returns with sand on their clothes and something to show the rest of the family.
The apartment’s balcony faces the ocean, and the heated pool provides another option when the children have finished being art critics for the day. Find the two- or three-bedroom apartment that suits your family. Leave enough of the holiday open for a story, a swim and whatever small treasure needs carrying home.
