Seniors Month 2026: what's on across Australia.
October is the busiest month of the year for older Australians. Two full-month state festivals, two national weeks and a handful of state events all land within four weeks of each other. Here are the confirmed dates, and a ready-made session if you are the one running something.
Dates confirmed against each organiser in August 2026. Free to use, no permission needed.
The short answer
Seniors Month in Australia is October. Victoria and Queensland both run the full month, 1 to 31 October 2026. South Australia and Tasmania also run in October. Inside the month sit National Carers Week, 11 to 17 October, and Get Online Week, 19 to 25 October.
Two states sit outside it. Western Australia holds Seniors Week 8 to 15 November 2026, and New South Wales runs its Seniors Festival in March rather than October.
The calendar
Everything below was checked against the organiser's own site in August 2026. Where dates were not yet published we have said so rather than guessing.
Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.| Event | Dates | Where | Theme and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| International Day of Older Persons | Thu 1 October 2026 | National / UN | The day most state festivals are built to open on. |
| Victorian Seniors Festival | 1 to 31 October 2026 | VIC | "Connect, Create, Celebrate". Free public transport for Victorian Seniors Card holders 3 to 11 October. |
| Queensland Seniors Month | 1 to 31 October 2026 | QLD | "Connect and celebrate". Includes Grandparents Day on Sunday 25 October. Event grants available. |
| SA Week of Ageing Well | From 1 October 2026 | SA | Runs about a week from 1 October. Confirm exact dates with COTA SA. |
| Tasmania Seniors Month | October 2026 | TAS | Expanded from a week to a month. Exact programme dates via COTA Tasmania. |
| National Carers Week | Sun 11 to Sat 17 October 2026 | National | "Care for a Carer: Making Carers Visible". Grants available in some states. |
| Get Online Week | 19 to 25 October 2026 | National | Good Things Foundation's digital inclusion campaign. Event grants available for organisations running sessions. |
| WA Seniors Week | 8 to 15 November 2026 | WA | Sits just outside the October block. |
| NSW Seniors Festival | March 2027 | NSW | NSW runs in autumn, not October. Worth diarising separately. |
Sources checked August 2026: Seniors Online Victoria, Queensland Seniors Month, National Carers Week, Good Things Foundation. Programmes change, so confirm with the organiser before printing anything.
If you are planning member communications, the useful thing to notice is that every 2026 theme points the same way. Victoria says connect, create, celebrate. Queensland says connect and celebrate. Carers Week says make carers visible. None of them are about services. They are all about connection, which is a much easier thing to build an event around.
A ten minute session you can actually run
This is written for libraries, U3As, Probus clubs, Men's Sheds, neighbourhood houses and community centres. It fits inside a longer digital skills class, it needs no budget, and nobody has to buy anything. Use it, change it, put your own logo on it. You do not need our permission.
What you need
- A screen or projector, or just a phone if the group is small
- Attendees with a smartphone or tablet, charged, and ideally knowing their app store password
- About ten minutes inside a longer session, plus five for questions
The outline
Setting up a daily check-in, step by step
Three steps, roughly three minutes each.
"If something happened to you at home tomorrow morning, how long before somebody noticed?" Let people answer. It is usually the moment the room goes quiet, and it does the teaching for you.
Download, sign up, choose a check-in time. Go slowly and let people do each step themselves rather than doing it for them. Five minutes is realistic for a group.
This is the step that matters and the one most often skipped. Have each person share their code with a family member by text before they leave. A check-in nobody receives is not a safety net.
Why step three decides everything
Worth saying plainly to a room, because it is the single most useful thing we have learned from our own data. People who set up a daily check-in and connect a family member are still using it a fortnight later at a rate of about 77 percent. People who set it up alone and connect nobody are at about 6 percent.
Same app, same tap, wildly different outcome. Tapping a button into the void gets old inside a week. Tapping it because your daughter sees it and stops worrying is a completely different act. If a session only gets people as far as installing something, it has not really worked. Getting one person connected in the room is worth more than getting ten people to download.
Other things that work well in October
- Pair it with the free transport window. In Victoria, 3 to 11 October is when people will actually travel to you. Put your bigger event inside it.
- Run the digital session during Get Online Week, 19 to 25 October, and look at the Good Things event grants rather than funding it yourself.
- Do something for carers separately, 11 to 17 October. Carers are a different audience with different needs, and they are routinely folded into seniors events where they do not quite fit.
- Use Grandparents Day, Sunday 25 October, for anything intergenerational. Grandchildren are very good at setting up phones.
- Give people something to take home. A single printed page with the three steps beats a brochure nobody reads.
Being straight about what this is
We make a daily check-in app, so we have an obvious interest in you running a session about daily check-ins. A few things worth saying anyway.
- The session works with any tool, including none. A family group chat with a thumbs up each morning does the same job. Do not let us be the point of it.
- A check-in app is not a personal alarm. No monitoring centre, no fall detection, no GPS, no ambulance. If someone in your group needs emergency response, point them at a monitored alarm.
- It is not suitable for moderate or advanced dementia, because it relies on the person remembering.
- Nobody has to pay. There is a free plan and it does the core job. Please do not run a session that feels like a sales pitch, because your members will smell it and it will reflect on you rather than us.
If you want a hand
We are a small team in Perth. We cannot staff events around the country, but we can send you a printable flyer, answer questions by email, or give you a hundred word blurb for a newsletter or bulletin. There is no cost and no catch. The partner page has the details, or email info@hellotoday.com.au and a human will reply.
If you would rather just take the outline above and never speak to us, that is genuinely fine too.
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Common questions
October. Victorian Seniors Festival and Queensland Seniors Month both run the full month, 1 to 31 October 2026, and South Australia's Week of Ageing Well and Tasmania's Seniors Month also fall in October. Two national weeks sit inside the month: National Carers Week from 11 to 17 October and Get Online Week from 19 to 25 October. Western Australia runs separately in November, 8 to 15 November 2026, and New South Wales holds its Seniors Festival in March rather than October.
Each state sets its own. Victoria's Seniors Festival theme for 2026 is 'Connect, Create, Celebrate'. Queensland Seniors Month is 'Connect and celebrate'. National Carers Week 2026 is 'Care for a Carer: Making Carers Visible'. All three point the same way, which is connection rather than services, and that is worth knowing if you are planning an event or writing to members.
Yes, for nine days. Victorian Seniors Card holders travel free on public transport between 3 and 11 October 2026. It is one of the better known parts of the festival and it is worth mentioning to members, because it often decides whether someone travels to an event or stays home.
Get Online Week is Good Things Foundation Australia's national digital inclusion campaign, running 19 to 25 October 2026. Hundreds of local digital skills events are held in libraries, neighbourhood houses and community centres to help people get online and build confidence. Good Things offers event grants to organisations running sessions, so it is worth checking their site if you are planning something.
A digital safety session works well because it is practical and finishes with something people take home. A ten minute segment on setting up a daily check-in fits neatly inside a longer digital skills class, and it does not require anyone to buy anything. There is a step by step outline further up this page that you are welcome to use or adapt.
The material on this page is free to use and you do not need our permission. We are a small Australian team and we cannot staff sessions around the country, but we can send a printable flyer and answer questions by email. If you would like either, get in touch through the partner page.
Connection is the whole point.
Every 2026 theme says the same thing. If your session gets one person connected to their family, it worked.
Free plan available forever. Materials on this page are free to use and adapt.