Arrive as Delegates, Leave as Friends: Reflections on The Big Gig Melbourne 2026

There's a moment at every Musical Futures event when something in the room shifts.

People walk in clutching name badges and coffee cups, a little unsure where to sit, and a few hours later they're jamming in a band together, hanging out for a post conference beer and making plans to visit each other's classrooms. 

The Big Gig Melbourne, held this year at the University of Melbourne's amazing music facilities, was no exception. If anything, it was a clear example of why that shift happens, and why it matters when attending, planning or delivering meaningful PD for Music teachers.

This year marked ten years since the very first ‘Big Gig’ was held in Melbourne. In that time we have all been through so much change, from the long Covid lockdowns and online teaching to building back by amalgamating Musical Futures Australia with Musical Futures International to form the global non-profit Musical Futures International organisation that delivered this milestone event (and many others) in 2026.

The Musical Futures team decided to mark this anniversary by bringing back together some of the teachers who were there at the original Big Gig and as part of the keynote invited them to contribute to a presentation called Ten Years in Ten Photos. Each contributor picked one photo and a story to go with it that represented how this incredible community has grown and what it means to them. Looking back through a decade of photos is a strange thing. The faces change, the technology in the room changes enormously, but one thing in every single photo that was chosen remained the same. Teachers and students, instruments in hand, grinning at each other mid-song or laughing together as they are captured in a moment from an experience that was memorable enough to call it up again years later. That's the message that ran through The Big Gig Melbourne this year too. Whatever else changes around us, the room is always full of people who have come together to learn through playing music with their mission being to return to school inspired with new ideas and resources to try with their classes.

So what does “arrive as delegates, leave as friends” actually mean in practice? 

It's not a slogan stuck on a lanyard. It's a design principle. Musical Futures PD is built around doing the thing, not just hearing about the thing. 

You don't sit through a lecture on informal learning and then go home to figure out how it feels. You jam. You sing harmonies with someone you met twenty minutes earlier. You get handed an instrument you've never touched and a group of strangers figure out a riff, lyrics or chord progression with you. By the time the day ends, you've made music with these people, and making music with someone is a fast track to actually knowing them. Just like our students who are always engaged by experiencing these same hands-on musical experiences through playing music together with their friends and peers, helped by Musical Futures resources and the informal learning pedagogy that sits behind everything the organisation does.

A Decade On, Still Hands-On

The venue this year deserves a mention of its own. The University of Melbourne's fifth floor music facilities gave us superbly equipped rehearsal rooms complete with the legendary ‘jam pods’ set up for silent band work, welcoming staff, a fantastic performance space, decent acoustics, and enough room to break into groups without everyone falling over each other. It was a genuine treat to run sessions in spaces actually built for music making. It was perfect for playing instruments or dancing along with keynote presenter Marcel Pusey who got us all up and moving from the start and with plenty of space for coffee and a chat between sessions.

Learning From Teachers, Not Just About Them

One of the things that sets Musical Futures PD apart is who's running the sessions. Alongside the Musical Futures core team, Musical Futures Guides and Champion Teachers are MF’s resident experts who live and breathe the resources and the pedagogy. So the day was full of teachers who use this stuff in their classrooms leading sessions for their peers. There's a particular kind of trust that builds at PD that’s been crafted by the profession, for the profession and our popular ‘unconference’ session, this year sponsored by Trinity College London, is an additional opportunity for anyone in the room to get up and share an idea or activity.

What We Actually Did

True to form, the day was packed with practical sessions rather than panels. Resource playthroughs gave people an in depth look at what's available and how to use it the next morning with their classes. There were jam sessions, classroom workshopping and a big Aussie Songs playalong to start day 2 that got an enthusiastic reception, as you'd expect from a room full of Australian music teachers. AI in the music classroom got a serious look in, not as a gimmick but as a genuine pedagogical question to wrestle with. Electronic music pedagogy had its own dedicated space, alongside a session on a new movie music unit that had people scoring scenes on the spot. 

Why It Works

None of this works without the practical, playing first approach Musical Futures is built upon. We play music. We sing. We make friends. It sounds simple because it is simple, but it's also rare. A lot of professional development asks teachers to sit and absorb. The Big Gig asks teachers to play together in the same room with instruments in their hands, the way their students do and trusts that the learning will follow the doing rather than the other way around.

Ten years in, ten photos in, that hasn't changed. People arrive as delegates. They leave as friends. And if the next ten years look anything like the last, we'll all be back next year, instruments ready, hoping to add one more photo to the set.