Pair'd Margaret River 2026 (19–22 Nov): The Art and Craft Side

Pair'd runs 19 to 22 November this year, Thursday to Sunday. It's the third year running, and by now the festival has settled into what it always wanted to be: a long weekend of wine, food, music, and the country itself, spread across about twenty events and most of the major wineries in the region. Tickets and the program are on the Pair'd Margaret River Festival 2026 program page.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

I'm not going to write the food and wine version of this post. There are people who do that better than I do, and most of the festival's own copy covers it well. What I'm going to do is the bit nobody else writes: what you do with the daylight in between sittings. You've paid for a long lunch at Vasse Felix on Saturday and a Michelin-starred dinner on Saturday night. You still have Friday morning, Saturday morning, Sunday lunchtime, and the gaps. The gaps are where the region happens.

Quick history, in case you've not been before. The festival used to be the Gourmet Escape, the one you might remember from a few years back. It was rebranded as Pair'd in 2024, with Tourism Western Australia putting proper weight behind it, and it has been growing every year since. Three years in, and it's now arguably the South West's biggest tourism event, with most events selling out months ahead and the wineries running their own programs around the official one.

The shape is: long lunches in the bush, sommelier-led tastings at the cellar doors, beach clubs, and one or two big-format dinners with imported chefs. It is a wine-first festival. The food is the way in.

Here's what most festival visitors don't know: the local makers run their own thing through that week as well. Galleries push their programs forward, open studios stay open longer, and a lot of the wineries pair their lunches with art on the wall. Spending four days in the region for the food, you can build a parallel itinerary out of the craft that costs almost nothing and slows the whole weekend down. Which is, frankly, the point.

Photo: Stuart Sevastos, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Most of the festival proper kicks off Friday afternoon. The morning is free. Drive down via the Tuart Forest (between Capel and Busselton, half an hour either side of the highway) and you'll see one of the last great tuart stands in the world. Tuart is the third of the three southwest hardwoods, after jarrah and marri, and the forest is what the wood came out of.

Arriving Friday morning, that's your warm-up. Already down, take an hour at Cape Naturaliste before lunch. The lighthouse is open from 8.30. The light at 9am in November is the best of the year.

This is when I'd come and see us. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday and a Saturday morning during Pair'd weekend is, predictably, busier than most. Pamela runs the floor and I'm at the bench. You can watch through the viewing area into the workshop. People come in on the way to a lunch at Vasse Felix or Cullen and stay for an hour. That's a thing the festival doesn't put on the program because it isn't theirs to put on, but it's the parallel offer that runs through the whole weekend.

2810 Caves Road, on the corner of Blythe Rd — six minutes from Yallingup, fourteen from Margaret River township. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd.

You'll have a Pair'd lunch booked somewhere. Most likely Vasse Felix, Cullen, Voyager, Leeuwin, Howard Park, or one of the smaller producers running a paired event. My honest advice for a long lunch during Pair'd: don't drive yourself. The festival lays on transport between the major sites; use it. The afternoon is meant to dissolve into early evening. Driving ruins that.

With Sunday morning before you head back, drive down to Canal Rocks. Twelve minutes from Yallingup. You can park, walk down, and be the only people there at 8am even during Pair'd weekend. The ocean does the work.

Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A few practical things, from someone who's watched four festivals come and go.

Can't make November? The region runs two other things worth pairing your trip with. Margaret River Open Studios runs every September: 150 artists, fifteen days, free entry. That's the craft parallel to Pair'd, and it's underrated. The other is the Cape to Cape MTB in October, for the cyclists.

Three big events, spread across the spring. Pair'd is the loudest. Open Studios is the slowest. Together they paint a fairly complete picture of why the region is what it is.

Open Studios in September for the craft side. my five favourite wineries near here for the cellar doors I'd send you to.

It takes the things this region already does (grows good fruit, raises good cattle, makes good wine, blows good glass, builds good furniture) and gives them a four-day frame to be seen in. The frame is the festival. The things in it have been here all along.

The frame is the festival. The things in it have been here all along.

Most of the visitors have gone by Sunday afternoon. Held a Monday off work and still down? Sunday night at one of the smaller restaurants in Dunsborough (Yarri, the Pourhouse, or the Goose at the bay) is the quietest meal of the weekend. The kitchens are exhaling. So is everyone else.

Photo: Harry Foley, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Pair'd at its best gives you the feeling that the region is briefly, deliberately, putting on a show, and then the show ends and the place goes back to what it is the rest of the year. Which is the real reason it works.

Read next: what is on across the year.