For five days from 29 September, two buildings a short train ride apart run free children's programming from 10am to 3pm, and the rest of a Perth weekend has to bend around that. It is a generous window with a hard stop, and by mid-afternoon you are back on the pavement with children who are wound up rather than worn out. The other half of each day is the part that needs planning, so that you are not driving in circles or paying for something you did not need.
The festival is the fixed point
AWESOME International Arts Festival (Subiaco and the Perth Cultural Centre) runs 29 September to 3 October 2026, 10am to 3pm daily, split across two hubs: the Subiaco Arts Centre at 180 Hamersley Rd, and the State Theatre Centre of WA in the city. The outdoor programme is free and needs no booking. You turn up, and it absorbs a group of any size, which is the point of it. This is built for family groups and school parties, not for two adults looking for a quiet cultural hour.
The ticketed indoor shows are the part that disappears. They run roughly A$15 to A$30 a head and they sell out, so book them before you fly rather than on the morning. A sold-out 10.30am show is an hour-shaped hole you cannot easily fill nearby, and improvising with small children in an arts precinct is how a good day turns average.
The name catches people out. The festival has been run by Barking Gecko Arts since the 2024 merger with Awesome Arts, so search the current name when you go looking for the programme and the booking page. The older organisation's pages still surface in results and they are not where the 2026 tickets sit.
Pick one hub per day and stay with it. The two sites are a train ride apart, which sounds like nothing until you attempt it at 11.40am with a pram, a snack bag and a child mid-sugar. Do the city hub on the day you want the museum and the waterfront; do Subiaco on the day you are heading west or south afterwards.
The city block you can do on foot
WA Museum Boola Bardip (Perth Cultural Centre) sits 200m from Perth Station and opens 9.30am to 5pm daily. Entry is A$15 adult, A$10 concession, and under-16s go free, which makes the state museum, standing next door to the festival's city hub, the cheapest afternoon of your weekend by a wide margin. The daily Curious Kids sessions for under-5s and the sensory-friendly Quiet Hour make it the most forgiving stop here with a toddler in tow. Large groups are fine, and school and community bookings are handled directly rather than through a third party.
Scitech (City West) is on the corner of Railway and Sutherland St, open 9.30am to 4pm daily, a five-minute train hop from the city hub. It is about A$26 adult and A$18 child, with the planetarium, Australasia's largest, charged on top. This is your rainy-morning insurance policy, and it takes pre-booked groups at dedicated rates, birthday parties included. The sequencing needs some realism, though. Festival at 10am and Scitech at 1pm is two loud, bright, crowded environments back to back in school-holiday season, and the second one will not land. Do one or the other in a day.
Elizabeth Quay (city waterfront) is the free release valve between ticketed stops, and it does that job better than anything you could pay for. Open public space, no group limits, cafés and ice-cream around the inlet to soak up whoever will not sit still, and a carousel for a few dollars a ride. The water jets run to set daily hours and go off in bad weather or for maintenance, so check their socials before you promise anyone a soaking, because that promise is very hard to walk back. The Perth Zoo ferry leaves from here too, which makes the Quay a hinge rather than a detour.
Over the water to the animals you look at
Perth Zoo (South Perth) is at 20 Labouchere Rd and opens 9am to 5pm every day of the year, at around A$33 for an adult with under-4s free. Take the ferry from Elizabeth Quay and the journey does half the entertaining for you. For a five-year-old, the boat is the outing and the zoo is the bonus. Prams and picnics are welcome and there are group and school rates if you are travelling with several families.
Time it around the sun. When the middle of the day turns hot, the animals go flat and the paths get long; the Nocturnal House is the reliable hit in exactly that window. Perth Zoo is a look-at place. If the thing your child actually wants is to put a hand on an animal, you need the other side of the city.
Where the animals are hands-on
Caversham Wildlife Park (Whiteman) is at 233B Drumpellier Drive, open 9am to 4.30pm daily except Christmas Day, with last entry at 3.30pm. Adults are about A$40 and children about A$18. The arrival time matters more than the ticket: get there before 2pm or you miss the farm show and the koala sessions, which is most of what you came for. It is the strongest venue in this guide for a big group, with a dedicated sales line and email for group bookings rather than a general enquiry form.
Whiteman Park (Whiteman) wraps around it, and entry and parking are free. Open seven days, with picnic grounds big enough to land a dozen people without a plan. The Bennett Brook Railway runs weekends and public holidays 11am to 4pm, and daily 11am to 3pm during school holidays, which covers this weekend, with train and tram rides costing a few dollars each. It is volunteer-run, so confirm the day you intend to go rather than assuming the timetable.
Treat the two as one outing and park once. You need a car out here, and the distance from the festival hubs means this is a full day of its own, not something you bolt onto a 3pm finish.
Kings Park, where everyone gets wet
Rio Tinto Naturescape Kings Park (Kings Park) is free, unbooked and happy to absorb a large family group. No gate, no ticket, you simply arrive. It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 4pm, through April to October, which puts this weekend comfortably inside the season. It closes Mondays, closes for all of February, and closes on very-high fire-danger days, so it is worth a look at the forecast before you commit the afternoon.
Pack for what actually happens. Bring a towel and a full change of clothes per child, because they will get wet rather than damp, and a wet child in a car on the way to dinner is a bad end to a good day. This is the best-value stop of the whole weekend and the one adults tend to enjoy most, because you can sit down.
Fremantle for a submarine and a prison
WA Maritime Museum (Fremantle) opens 9.30am to 5pm daily at A$15 adult with under-16s free, and the submarine tour is extra. External cladding works run April to September 2026, but the museum and café stay open through the main entrance. Only the outdoor café seating is out of action, so do not let a works notice put you off the visit. Climbing through the Ovens submarine beats any screen your children own, but read the constraints first: it is a small-group timed ticket, there is no wheelchair access, and there are no toilets aboard. Send everyone before you board, and skip it entirely if anyone in the party dislikes tight spaces.
Fremantle Prison (Fremantle) is World Heritage-listed and open daily to 5pm, at roughly A$25 adult and A$15 child per tour, with combo passes cheaper if you want two. Choose the tour by age rather than by which sounds best. Convict or Behind Bars work for families. The Tunnels tour has a minimum age and involves a ladder descent and an underground boat, so check before you book a family of mixed ages. Torchlight is deliberately spooky: wrong for a nervous eight-year-old, exactly right for a thirteen-year-old who has spent two days being polite about children's theatre. Groups are properly catered for here, including schools and childcare.
The two that need a car and an advance booking
Adventure World (about 25 minutes south of the city) is seasonal, and the 2026/27 season opens on 26 September. That makes this festival weekend the first one it has run all year, which cuts both ways: everything is fresh, and you are walking into opening-weekend crowds. A day pass is around A$70 for an adult with under-4s free, groups are fine, and you must book online in advance because walk-up entry is not guaranteed. It is a whole day, so it competes with the festival rather than complementing it. Put it on a day you have already decided to skip the 10am programme.
AQWA — The Aquarium of Western Australia (Hillarys) sits at 91 Southside Drive and opens 9am to 4pm daily. Adults are A$37 and the glass-bottom boat starts at A$30, which needs booking ahead. It compresses the whole WA coastline into one building and runs a turtle rescue centre, and the drive north is 25 minutes, so plan it as a half-day paired with the harbour beach rather than a quick stop between two other things. Group and education programmes are available if you are coordinating several families.
For the twelve-year-old who has opted out
Matagarup Zip + Climb (Burswood Park) is at the northern end of Camfield Drive. The Bridge Climb starts at A$99, the Express Zip at A$119, and Zip+Climb at A$165. That is the most expensive hour of your weekend, and the one that buys you goodwill from a bored older child who has sat through a lot of festival programming.
Check the numbers before you pay. Harness, age and weight limits apply per person and they are enforced at the gate, not negotiated at it, and turning a child away at the ramp is a memorable way to ruin an afternoon. Private group bookings are available for schools and social clubs, but this is not a whole-family activity in the way the rest of this list is, because someone will be standing at the bottom holding the bags.
A clear night in the hills
Perth Observatory (Bickley) is at 337 Walnut Rd, 25 minutes east of the city into the hills, with night sky tours at roughly A$35 adult and A$25 child. It is volunteer-run with small tour capacity, so book well ahead; school and private group tours are offered. Night tours are weather-dependent and they sell out.
With younger children, take the Sunday day tour instead and do not feel you have compromised. A five-year-old who has been at a festival since 10am will not last until the sky goes properly dark, and the drive back down the hill with a sobbing passenger is the version of this evening nobody describes afterwards.
A shape that works over two days
Day one, city hub. Festival 10am to 3pm at the State Theatre Centre, then walk 200m to Boola Bardip for a cool, quiet hour, then down to Elizabeth Quay for the carousel and something cold. Nothing costs more than A$15 a head and nobody gets in a car.
Day two, pick a direction. West for Fremantle, with the submarine in the morning and a prison tour after lunch. North for AQWA and the beach. East for Caversham and Whiteman, arriving before 2pm. Or skip the programme entirely and give the day to Adventure World. Kings Park and Naturescape slot into any late afternoon that has gone loose, because they are free and you can leave when you like.
Practical notes
Getting around: the city hub, Boola Bardip, Scitech, Elizabeth Quay, the zoo ferry and Fremantle all work on public transport, and that is most of the weekend. Whiteman, Caversham, Adventure World, AQWA and the observatory need a car. Whiteman Park's parking is free; budget for parking everywhere else.
Paying: cards work everywhere here, and the only cash you might want is a few dollars for the carousel and the Bennett Brook Railway. Book online in advance for Adventure World, the AQWA glass-bottom boat, Matagarup, the observatory and every ticketed festival show. Those five are the ones that sell out or refuse walk-ups.
Timing: the festival's 10am to 3pm window is the spine. Caversham's 3.30pm last entry and Naturescape's 4pm close both come earlier than you expect, and the Monday closure at Naturescape catches people who assume a public park is always open. Late September afternoons are warm enough that hats and water are not optional.
Budget: two adults and two children under 16 can do a festival day plus Boola Bardip for about A$30 all in. A Caversham day for the same four runs around A$116, Fremantle Prison around A$80, and Adventure World is the outlier at roughly A$70 a head for adults. Check current child pricing before you commit to that one.
Staying: the city and Subiaco both put you within a short train ride of a hub, and the city end also gets you the Quay and the ferry on foot. Compare rates for the festival dates through Perth hotel search, and book early, because these are school-holiday dates. For everything beyond this weekend, the rest of the city is covered in our Perth guide.
