Qtopia Sydney

Qtopia Sydney opened in February 2024 in the former Darlinghurst Police Station — the very building where the 53 people arrested at the first Mardi Gras in 1978 were locked up, and some beaten. The choice of address is the museum's founding statement: the cells that held the 78ers now hold their story. Billed as the largest queer history museum and cultural centre in the world, Qtopia's four-building campus opened with eighteen exhibitions spanning the HIV/AIDS epidemic, human rights struggles, First Nations queer experience, media and identity, alongside performance spaces and education programs. Visiting: open Wednesday-Sunday 10:30am-4:30pm; around $15 (concessions $10, under-10s free, Sundays free courtesy of the City of Sydney). It anchors Darlinghurst's remarkable heritage cluster — the Gay & Lesbian Holocaust Memorial in Green Park is across the corner, Taylor Square's rainbow crossing a few blocks on — making a half-day queer history walk of the neighbourhood entirely natural.