St Kilda Festival 2026
How Clean Vibes supported Australia's largest free community festival
Australia's biggest free festival needed a partner that could match its scale
St Kilda Festival is held annually across the St Kilda foreshore and surrounding precincts, with multiple stages, food vendors, and family areas operating simultaneously.
It draws 400,000 people across two days - making it one of the most logistically demanding events on the Australian calendar. For 2026, the City of Port Phillip partnered with Clean Vibes to design and deliver a comprehensive cleaning and waste management program that matched the ambition of the event itself.
This was our first year supporting St Kilda Festival. Every plan, process, and person on-site was built from the ground up in close collaboration with the council, production team, and waste partners.
Event at a Glance
- Client: City of Port Phillip
- Location: St Kilda, Melbourne
- Duration: 2 days
- Attendance: 400,000 patrons
- Team Size: 30 key staff + 185 on Sunday
The Challenge
Scale and Coordination
Large-scale public events generate enormous volumes of waste in concentrated bursts, under conditions that make logistics genuinely difficult. The St Kilda Festival presented several interconnected challenges from the outset.
Our Approach
A process built months in advance - and refined all the way to event day
Effective waste management isn't just about the day itself. It's the result of careful planning, strong relationships, and systems that are based off years of experience.
1. Months before - Collaboration with council
We worked alongside the City of Port Phillip through multiple iterations of the Waste Management Plan - conducting in-person site walkthroughs to determine the precise placement of waste compounds, taking road closures and existing infrastructure into account. Every decision was made with council specifications as the benchmark.
2. Weeks before - Rostering, supplier and logistics
As the event approaches, our operations team finalised staffing - scheduling 30 key personnel and 185 staff for the Sunday peak - alongside supplier confirmations, bin and equipment provisioning and sanitary facility planning. If there are any plan changes, we update all providers so everyone is on the same page.
3. Event Days - Proactive monitoring, waste sorting and vendor partnership
On-site, zone supervisors supervisors introduced themselves to every food vendor and ran regular check ins on waste stream compliance. Colour-coded, clearly labelled FOH bins were distributed across both precincts, with Clean Vibes bin covers providing additional stream separation at point of capture. Bins were emptied on rotation before overflow happened.
4. Post-Event - Site restoration
Our night crew deployed two road sweepers and conducted a full litter-pick of all event areas, including surrounding streets. We even pressure washed the streets so it would be looking even better than when we started!
Waste Management
Six streams, one mission: keep waste out of landfill
All waste collected across the site was sorted onsite then channelled through our recycling partner, Atlast's Planet Recovery program - an off-site sorting facility that maximised diversion rates by processing co-mingled materials into steel, aluminium, plastic, and timber. CDS bins were placed in high-traffic areas to capture eligible containers for return to VIC CDS.
Results
We achieved a diversion rate of 80.70% - across 17 tonnes collected from 400,000 festival-goers.
"Despite it being our first year supporting St Kilda Festival, the team delivered to a high standard throughout — from planning through to bump-out.
We received positive feedback from council for our constant communication and efforts on the ground. We look forward to building on this foundation and making St Kilda Festival cleaner and greener in years to come."
— Tristan Chan, Major Event Manager
★ TRUSTED BY COUNCILS ACROSS AUSTRALIA
We partner with local councils to deliver cleaning and sustainable waste services that meet your standards - from initial planning and waste management plans through to bump-out and post-event reporting. We build around your assets, your community, and your sustainability targets.
