The 2025 Victorian State Schools Spectacular to Return for Annual Event in September

The 2025 Victorian State Schools Spectacular will return for its annual extravaganza for two shows on Saturday 13 September 2025 at 1pm and 6:30pm at John Cain Arena.
 
 
Since the inaugural VSSS in 1995, Victorian students have had the opportunity to take part in the Spectacular where it has seen talent such as Vanessa Amorosi, Opera Australia soprano Nicole Car, Tina Turner the Musical lead Ruva Ngwenya, The Voice winner Harrison Craig and award winning music theatre star Max McKenna all having been a part of the VSSS during their school years.

In 2025, 2500 Victorian students from 200 government schools have begun an extraordinary 7-month creative journey, which will culminate in the state’s budding creative talent taking to the stage as circus artists, musicians, singers and dancers as well as further students taking on the incredibly important behind-the-scenes roles in stage management, audio, lighting, vision, costumes, and production.

This year’s show - On Air – is taking flight and soaring high, reaching new stratospheric heights of performance! The show will explore the element that unifies all of us, and indeed, life on the planet – AIR - every breath, every breeze, every sigh. Following the metaphor of air, through music, dance and performance, the show investigates concepts of facing one’s fears, breathing in one’s self belief, through to the stories heard on the wind in a children’s lullaby. The show will begin with a grand celebration of the air with leading Victorian Aerialists literally dancing in the air suspended high above the stage of John Cain Arena. It will continue through welcoming back the First Nations Ensemble with their new work ‘Cicadas’, led by Na Djinang Circus. We also welcome the award winning Pese Mai vocalists with songs performed in multiple First Nations languages.

Carefully curated through suggestions from the students, there will be over 42 musical items in this year’s show featuring music from Sheppard, Max Richter, Queen, Gotye, Ibrahim Maalouf, Sergio Medes, Karl Jenkins, Gloria Estefan, Top-loader, Connor Price and Six60 amongst many others. The orchestra will also be playing specially commissioned original music by Kai Chen Lim.

The 2500 students are made up of Principal Vocalists, Principal Dancers, Backing Vocalists, Victorian State Schools Choir, a 75-piece orchestra, 1200 mass dance students and 1100 in the mass choir. Providing the experience of a lifetime, participating primary and secondary school students work with industry professionals across several disciplines as part of the preparation and performance of the Spectacular providing a unique training opportunity for students onstage as well as backstage in areas like stage management, audio, lighting and video.

The VSSS is a proud tradition in Victorian government schools since its inception in 1995 and offers students the opportunity to take part in this heart-warming live stage showcase performing to thousands of people and later broadcast on television.
Students in the VSSS train and perform under the guidance of industry professionals who make up the Creative Team including Creative Director Neill Gladwin, Musical Director Chong Lim AM, Dance Director Yvette Lee, Creative Producer Simon K Patterson, Costume Designer Isaac Lummis, and award-winning Lighting Designer Paul Jackson.
Quote attributable to Creative Director Neill Gladwin

“This year our student cast gave us song themes of flying, floating and soaring; music that was truly on air. From these ideas the 2025 Spectacular was born - transcending the terrestrial and embracing the stratosphere.