Discover a world of dazzling opals, outback charm and vibrant festivities at the Lightning Ridge Opal & Gem Festival this July.
Nestled in the rugged outback of New South Wales, Lightning Ridge is a small town with a big reputation, recognised worldwide for its stunning opals — the rare black opal in particular. For more than a century this remote town has been a beacon for gemstone hunters, miners and visitors to experience the unique outback landscape and the fascinating world of opals.
And when better to experience it than at the annual Lightning Ridge Opal & Gem Festival, a celebration of the region’s rich opal mining history, gemstone artistry and vibrant community spirit. Held on 23–26 July 2025, the festival is a must-visit for opal and gem enthusiasts and newcomers alike. With a great blend of fun, culture and sparkling gems, the festival is the perfect place to immerse yourself in the best of Lightning Ridge. And to make it even more enticing — entry to the festival precinct is free!
Outback Opal Hunters
A town built on opals
Lightning Ridge’s ties to opal mining date back to 1901 when an entirely new kind of opal was discovered: the black opal. This new variety quickly gained popularity and value thanks to its dark base tone, which helps create greater contrast, more vibrant colours and distinct colour patterns that are unlike any opals seen before.
This discovery set the course for what Lightning Ridge is today; over the decades the opal fields surrounding Lightning Ridge grew, and by 1915 more than 3000 men and women had settled there. The tough mining conditions led to much invention and innovation and as the decades progressed the technology only improved with quite sophisticated machinery now widely used.
Blower dumping a load of opal dirt
Today, the town continues to thrive off its entirely natural opal industry, with mining still the backbone of the local economy. The opals are all mined, cut and polished with no stabilisation and treatments, and are rarer than diamonds — no two opals are ever the same and can be valued at up to $35,000 per carat.
The Lightning Ridge Opal & Gem Festival is a fitting tribute to this heritage. First held in 1971, it has grown and evolved over the years into a major festival that draws thousands of visitors from all across Australia and overseas. What started as a way to bring the community together is now a celebration of opals, gems and the unique character of Lightning Ridge itself.
Festival highlights
Visitors and opal enthusiasts from all over the world flock to Lightning Ridge every July to celebrate the beauty and brilliance of opals and other precious gems at this four-day event.
The overall festival sprawls through the open-air area next to Agate Street, next to the Bowling Club car park, and spreads into the Spider Brown Oval car park. There are indoor stalls housed in a marquee in the car park, as well as booths in the air-conditioned Multi-purpose Centre, with the entire festival being disabled/wheelchair accessible.
There’s no quiet moment at the festival, with each day jam-packed with activities and events for all ages and interests.
Opal and Gem Exhibition
At the beating heart of the festival is the Opal and Gem Exhibition, a vast marketplace where visitors can view, purchase and admire an impressive range of opals, gemstones, jewellery and other gem-inspired crafts. The 2024 event featured more than 200 stalls, and this year’s event is sure to be a similarly dazzling showcase of not only high-quality opals from all the Australian opal fields but also an array of other precious stones.
Wander the various stalls and see the best opals and gems Australia has to offer
The Exhibition is a great opportunity to experience the work of professional miners, jewellers and gem cutters who will have their stunning creations on display, all four days of the event. It’s a great spot for seasoned collectors and those looking for something beautiful to take home as a memento of their Lightning Ridge adventure.
While opals and gems are undoubtedly the stars of the show, the festival will also feature stalls selling other industry-related goods and various other products and crafts.
Rough and polished opals — no two stones are the same
Demonstrations from the experts
For visitors keen to delve deeper into the world of opals, the festival also features daily live demonstrations from professional opal cutters and carvers. Watch as rough opals are transformed into stunning gemstones through intricate cutting and polishing techniques and get unique insights into this impressive craftsmanship.
There will be plenty of stalls to explore throughout the festival
Festival atmosphere
To fuel your adventures, there will be various food and coffee vans throughout the festival, so you can grab a bite and sit and enjoy the fun-filled atmosphere. Live music performances also add to the festival vibe, with buskers roaming the streets and some fantastic daily performances by the local school band and choir.
This is a great opportunity for these remote-area students to showcase their skills in front of a large crowd. “A student performance from the musical Hamilton last year saw tourists from Canada and the US coming back daily to listen to the choir as they were ‘blown away by the voices out here in the middle of nowhere’,” said event coordinator Sally Weeks.
The Opal Queen Ball
One of the biggest events at the Opal & Gem Festival is the Opal Queen Ball. This ball is held on Saturday night and marks the conclusion of another successful festival. The Opal Queen Ball is a celebration of the women of Lightning Ridge and their contributions to the local community and the opal industry. The Opal Queen Ball is an elegant affair, and there are some fantastic prizes for the winners, including opal pendants and prize packs donated by loyal festival sponsors.
The Opal Queen Ball
Ball guests are able to vote for the People’s Choice award, and the winner receives a pendant, a prize pack and $500 is donated to a charity of her choice.
Tickets for the ball will be made available on the festival website a month before the ball. The ticket includes entry, a free glass of bubbles, a chance to meet the entrants and witness the winner announcements and presentations, not to mention a great night of dancing and fun.
The Australian Opal Awards
Held concurrently with the Opal & Gem Festival and led by its own volunteer not-for-profit committee is The Australian Opal Awards. The Awards committee manages the booth holders within the Lightning Ridge Multi-purpose Centre in addition to hosting a renowned opal artistry and jewellery design competition that is open to entrants worldwide with a prize pool of more than $30,000.
The competition was created to promote Australian opals at a national and international level and encourages entrants to submit freeform and carved opals in unique and individual creations, rather than the more traditional cabochon-style cuts. The competition is open to all skill levels, but there is a focus on highly polished and scratch-free surfaces, and detail and precision in jewellery settings.
Models display the entries to the Australian Opal Awards during the Gala Night
“Opal is truly unique in its form, structure and colour display, so we believe the focus of the competition should be designs that complement and celebrate that,” said Victoria Lugovoy, president of the Australian Opal Awards.
Within the Australian Opal Awards Exhibition are booths displaying and selling top-grade Australian opals and jewellery. Entry is by gold coin donation. Displayed in this venue you will also find the entries into the awards for 2025. As you enter the venue, make sure you grab a ‘People’s Choice’ voting card so you can vote for your favourite piece of 2025.
The entries to the Australian Opal Awards are on display for public viewing
The Australian Opal Awards and Gala Night is held on Friday evening (25 July) at the Lightning Ridge Bowling Club and is a formal night to announce the winners and showcase the competition’s 2025 entries. Locals and visitors will enjoy a three-course dinner with drinks, have the chance to meet people in the industry, the chance to dress up in their finest opal jewellery and snazziest clothes and enjoy live music. During the evening models will be wandering the floor displaying a selection of the 2025 competition creations (look, but don’t touch!).
Awards and Gala night tickets are available online now.
Beautiful trophies for the Australian Opal Awards
Now that we’ve got you hooked on the festival, let’s delve into the best destinations and unique experiences to add to your Lightning Ridge bucket list.
Exploring Lightning Ridge
Lightning Ridge is one of Australia’s most iconic outback towns, the name recognised worldwide for its connection to the beautiful opal. But that’s not all this town has to offer. It offers a unique blend of rugged outback life and artistic style, with plenty of unique attractions and welcoming locals, making it a great place to spend a handful of days, or more, exploring.
Arrive a few days before the festival or stay on longer and make sure you check out some of these spots in town and the surrounding area:
- Lightning Ridge Artesian Baths: These naturally heated pools are fed by the Great Artesian Basin, with temperatures between 40 and 42 degrees Celsius. Entry is free and they are open 22 hours a day.
Lightning Ridge Artesian Baths
- Amigo’s Castle: For a quirky stop, be sure to visit Amigo’s Castle. This castle was constructed by hand over a 20-year period using ironstone boulders by Vittorio Stefanato.
Amigo’s Castle
- Fossicking: Try your luck at one of the designated fossicking areas and see if you can find an opal treasure to take home as a memento. (There’s a site at the Lightning Ridge Visitors Information Centre.)
- Opal fields guided tour: Outback Opal Tours and Black Opal Tours are great options. If you’re a first-time visitor to Lightning Ridge and the annual festival, then the guided opal tours are a must. These tours take groups behind the scenes of the opal mining industry, exploring working opal fields, historic mine shafts and the techniques used to extract these valuable stones from the earth. It’s a rare chance to see the reality behind the gems that have made Lightning Ridge so famous. Bookings are essential.
- Visit an opal mine: Opal Mine Adventure and Chambers of the Black Hand are both open to visitors. Both underground experiences safely allow visitors to see how opal is mined in its natural environment with the latter also encompassing a unique sandstone level which contains more than 800 sculptures carved over decades by artist Ron Canlin.
Chambers of the Black Hand underground tourist attraction
- Australian Opal Centre: An exciting development in Lightning Ridge is the Australian Opal Centre, set to open its first stage around August 2025. Located at the Three Mile Opal Fields, the centre will be a state-of-the-art museum and research facility dedicated to showcasing the opal’s significance in the region and Australia wide. This volunteer-driven project has been in the works for more than 20 years.
- Outback Opal Hunters: Now into its 14th season since launch in 2018, this Discovery Channel series follows the fortunes of opal miners across Australia. Watched by some 200 million people in more than 100 countries, it has spawned many heroes — you never know which opal hunter you might accidentally bump into as you work your way through the Lightning Ridge opal fields.
Opal hunter Sam Mehan at her signature pink hoist
- John Murray Art Gallery: The world-renowned artist gallery is a must-see on Opal Street. John Murray’s art captures the simplicity of the outback landscape with rich colours and light. You may recognise his artwork, since John’s paintings have graced Sydney Airport in the 1980s as well as various other buildings and walls throughout Australia over his career.
- Opal Shops: No trip to ‘The Ridge’ is complete without purchasing a memento, and there are a wide variety of shops to cater for that purpose. Every colour, shape, size and value are available at Lightning Ridge’s main street stores where each shop has its own character and uniqueness, just like the opals themselves.
Some other local favourites and hidden gems are:
- Stanley the 18m-tall emu: Created by John Murray, this sculpture is located on the Castlereagh Highway, around 3km south of the Lightning Ridge turnoff (Bill O’Brien Way).
Stanley the 18m-tall emu by local artist John Murray
- Self-guided Car Door Tours: Five colour-coded tours that lead visitors through the opal fields and past places of interest, famous landmarks, opal mining relics, miners’ camps, the famous Lunatic Hill open cut mine and also out to the Grawin opal fields.
Lunatic Lookout is a popular spot
- First Shaft Lookout: A great spot for spectacular sunsets (hint: stay at least 30 minutes past official sunset for the best night sky colours).
First Shaft Lookout
- Glengarry/Sheepyard Seam Opal Fields: This location features three ‘bush pubs’, each with their own character. Meals at the Glengarry Hilton are enormous, and if you hang around the pubs, you’re likely to bump into a famous Outback Opal Hunter.
- The Australian Opal Centre ‘Spark’ outdoor cinema: Located at Three Mile Opal Fields, this outdoor cinema experience under the stars is held three times a week from April to September.
Where to stay with your caravan
Whether you prefer a comfortable stay with all the amenities or a more off-grid experience, Lightning Ridge has a range of accommodation options to suit different travel styles and requirements.
- Lightning Ridge Holiday Park: Located in the centre of town, this park is a popular choice with well-maintained facilities and a mix of cabins, powered and unpowered caravan sites and a camp kitchen.
- BIG4 Opal Holiday Park: Across the road from the Artesian Bore Baths, this spot is perfect for those who enjoy a relaxing soak at the end of the day. There is a wide variety of cabins and sites available and plenty of facilities for the whole family.
Some other great options are the Crocodile Caravan Park and Lightning Ridge Outback Resort.
- Station stays: If you enjoy quieter stays surrounded by nature, then Lightning Ridge has you covered. Carinya Station and Lorne Station both offer unique and caravan-friendly stays where you can experience some classic outback hospitality.
Best time to visit Lightning Ridge
July is a fantastic time to visit Lightning Ridge — the weather has cooled down and you can enjoy cool, crisp mornings that warm into glorious sunny days, perfect for exploring the outdoor and indoor exhibits at the festival.
On the whole, mid-March to late October is the best time of year to visit this region. Winter and spring tend to have more pleasant temperatures ranging between 16 and 30 degrees Celsius, with low humidity. Summer can be brutal in this part of Australia, with temperatures consistently in the very high 30–40s between December and February.
Bird’s eye view of Lightning Ridge
A festival worth the journey
The Lightning Ridge Opal & Gem Festival is more than just a showcase of Australia’s iconic and prized gemstone — it’s a celebration of the beautiful outback landscape and the communities that call it home. And with a great mix of markets, artistic flair, local storytelling and unique insight into the opal mining and jewellery industry, this festival offers a truly memorable experience for those who make the journey.
Find out more on the festival website.
Whether you’re chasing opals or just curious to explore, Lightning Ridge is ready to reward you with a little outback magic.
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