Benalla doubles down on murals

A town of about 9,000 people in northeast Victoria is trying to turn its walls into a reason to stop the car. Benalla now says it has more than 90 street art pieces outdoors, after adding 11 new murals ahead of its 2026 festival on April 17 to 19. (sheppnews.com.au) This did not start as a one-off paint weekend. The Benalla Street Art Festival was revived in March 2024 by Benalla Rural City Council and Visit Victoria, and the festival website says the 2025 edition added another 10 murals to the town’s existing collection. (benallastreetartfestival.com.au) By early 2025, local coverage was already calling Benalla regional Victoria’s largest urban art exhibition. One March 2025 report put the town’s count at 85 artworks before that year’s festival even began. (sheppnews.com.au) The 2025 festival ran from April 11 to 13 and brought in 10 artists, including Adnate, Aurora Campbell, Claire Foxton, Creature Creature, Drez, Gus Leunig, Howard Watson Junior, Meggs, Spencer Harrison and Yan Yan Candy Ng. The official festival site maps the 2025 mural locations across Benalla rather than clustering them in one fenced precinct. (benallastreetartfestival.com.au) That spread-out layout is the whole play. Visitors do not just buy a ticket and stand in one place; they walk Carrier Street, The Shed and the town centre, which pushes foot traffic past bakeries, pubs and shops while the art stays up after the festival weekend ends. (sheppnews.com.au) (benallastreetartfestival.com.au) Some of the works are also built to reward repeat visitors. Adnate’s 2025 mural “Transient Pulse” revisits a subject he first painted at The Shed 10 years earlier, turning the new piece into both a fresh attraction and a callback for people who know Benalla’s earlier street art history. (benallastreetartfestival.com.au) The town is now selling more than walls. The 2026 program promises artist talks, exhibitions, markets, live painting, food, wine, beer and music, which turns a mural trail into a weekend event instead of a quick photo stop. (benallastreetartfestival.com.au 1) (benallastreetartfestival.com.au 2) That formula is already getting outside recognition. In December 2025, the Benalla Street Art Festival was named a finalist in the Victoria Tourism Industry Council awards, with local reporting crediting the event for supporting businesses and strengthening Benalla’s reputation as the street art capital of regional Australia. (sheppnews.com.au) Now the town is doing the simplest thing a tourism strategy can do when it works: more of it. The 2026 festival is advertising another 11 new murals after what the festival site calls the record-breaking success of 2025, so Benalla is betting that an outdoor gallery people can walk for free will keep pulling visitors off the Hume corridor and into town. (sheppnews.com.au) (benallastreetartfestival.com.au)