When most people think of Bunnings Warehouse, they think of timber, tools, plants, paint and, of course, the famous sausage sizzle.
For us, Bunnings has also become a place of laughter, community, family fun and puppet shows.
Over the past decade, Larrikin Puppets has been fortunate enough to perform at family nights, school holiday events and community celebrations at Bunnings stores across Queensland and northern New South Wales. Looking back, it has been quite a journey.
Technically, our first ever Bunnings booking wasn’t a puppet show at all.
On Wednesday 12 August 2015, I was booked to perform roving puppetry at Bunnings Manly West between 10am and 1pm. Back then we were experimenting with different styles of performance and were happy to give almost anything a go.
Looking back, it feels like a glimpse of what was to come.
These days, we rarely offer roving puppetry. Our characters work best when families have seen them perform on stage first and have had the chance to get to know them. A puppet show gives audiences context and helps create that connection.
At the time, though, we had no idea that Bunnings events would become a regular part of our performing calendar for more than ten years.
Our first full puppet show at a Bunnings store came the following year.
On Thursday 17 March 2016, we travelled from our home in Moorooka to Bunnings Warwick for their Easter Family Night.
At the time, Warwick felt like quite an adventure. We set off from Brisbane in the late afternoon and headed south-west towards the Southern Downs. One of my strongest memories from that day is the sunset. As we approached Warwick, the sky was glowing with colour and it felt like the perfect backdrop for the evening ahead.
We arrived a couple of hours before the show to load all the equipment in and set up.
The stage was unlike anything we had performed on before.
The loading dock at the back of the store became our theatre stage.
Our puppet stage sat on the loading dock while the audience sat below on rows of chairs looking up at the performance. It was such an unusual setup, but it worked really well.
The show began at 6:45pm.
At that point, we had never really heard of children’s entertainment being presented at a hardware store. It seemed like a quirky idea, but once we saw the families arriving and the atmosphere building, it all made sense.
After the show, we packed everything down and made the drive back to Brisbane that same night.
We were tired, but we had discovered something special.
Later that year, life took us in a different direction.
In 2016, Elissa and I spent three months living in New York City, receiving formal training from puppeteers who worked on Sesame Street and The Muppets. It was an incredible opportunity that helped shape us as performers.
When we returned to Australia, we made another big change. We moved to Bribie Island.
Our next Bunnings booking came on Thursday 15 December 2016 at Bunnings Morayfield for a school holiday Family Fun Day.
Compared with Warwick, this was practically around the corner.
The 10am puppet show introduced us to what would become one of our favourite Bunnings stores to perform at.
Only a few months later, on Thursday 6 April 2017, we returned to Bunnings Morayfield for Easter Family Night.
The thing we remember most about Morayfield was the audience size.
Every time we performed there, the crowds were huge.
Unlike Warwick, we weren’t on a loading dock. Instead, we performed in a large open section of the warehouse, surrounded by towering shelves and stacks of timber. The space worked brilliantly for family events and always seemed to fill with excited children and families.
It was also at Morayfield that we began to appreciate just how much effort Bunnings teams put into these events.
There was often fairy floss, popcorn, market stalls, activities for children, roaming characters and sometimes even animal nurseries. The stores transformed into community events where families could spend an entire evening together.
In 2018, we headed north on a regional Queensland tour.
The first stop was Easter Family Night at Bunnings Maryborough on Thursday 22 March 2018.
At the time, I thought Easter Family Night was the main Bunnings event held throughout the year. I had no idea how many different community celebrations the stores actually hosted.
The Maryborough performance became the starting point of a tour that took us through Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Gin Gin, Rockhampton, Gracemere, Mount Morgan and Gladstone before returning home.
Then came 2020.
We had been booked to perform at Easter Family Night at Bunnings Robina on Thursday 2 April 2020.
The show never happened.
Like so many events across Australia, it was cancelled because of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
It’s a booking we’ve always been a little disappointed not to fulfil. Robina is a part of the Gold Coast where we perform regularly, and we would have loved to bring our puppet show to that community. Most of our Gold Coast bookings are private performances in schools and childcare centres, so opportunities to perform at public community events like libraries, festivals or a Bunnings Family Night are relatively rare for us.
Two years later, things finally started moving again.
On Saturday 2 July 2022, we performed at Bunnings Acacia Ridge for a school holiday Family Fun Day.
The response was fantastic.
The audience was enormous, the kids were engaged from beginning to end, and the feedback from families was wonderful.
The store was so happy with the event that they invited us back almost immediately for another school holiday performance on Thursday 22 September 2022.
It was one of those occasions where everyone involved walked away smiling.
The following year brought another far away Bunnings booking.
On Sunday 12 February 2023, we performed at Bunnings Coffs Harbour South in New South Wales.
We happened to be in Coffs Harbour while training the cast of Avenue Q for the Coffs Harbour Amateur Theatre Society, and we were able to fit a Bunnings Family Fun Day performance into the trip.
There is always something exciting about performing far from home. It reminded us of that first journey to Warwick years earlier.
Then came one of the most memorable Bunnings events we’ve ever been part of.
On Thursday 9 May 2024, we performed at Mother’s Day Family Night at the newly opened Bunnings Caboolture.
Being so close to Bribie Island, it was one of our shortest drives to a Bunnings store.
There were gift stalls, families everywhere, community groups, volunteers and plenty of activity throughout the evening.
Afterwards, we saw some lovely comments online from stallholders and families who had attended. The Rotary Club of Caboolture wrote about how much they enjoyed the puppet show and how much of a great time they had at the event overall.
It was also the night that I realised Bunnings hosted far more than Easter events and school holiday activities.
There was a whole calendar of family nights happening throughout the year.
School holiday events.
Easter Family Nights.
Mother’s Day Family Nights.
Halloween Family Nights.
And more still to come.
After the success of Mothers Day, Bunnings Caboolture had us back for Halloween Family Night on Thursday 31 October 2024, right on Halloween night itself. We were in the DIY Workshop space this time, much like our set-up at Bunnings Acadia Ridge. It was a smaller area, which also included a haunted house and other spooky activities and displays for kids and families to enjoy.
On Thursday 2 January 2025, we performed a school holiday Family Fun Day at Bunnings Victoria Point.
One of the nicest things about these events is that they are free for the community.
Over the years, we’ve had friends come along with their children, including people we went to school with who are now parents themselves. It’s always nice when friends of ours come along to support the show.
It’s always nice spotting familiar faces in the audience and hearing afterwards that the kids enjoyed the show.
These events bring communities together.
Families come along for a fun day or night out. Local groups raise money through sausage sizzles. Children enjoy the activities. Parents catch up with friends. Grandparents bring grandchildren.
Everyone seems to find something to enjoy.
And yes, there is usually a Bunnings sausage sizzle somewhere nearby.
In late 2025, we returned for another Halloween Family Night, this time at Bunnings Caboolture again on Thursday 30 October. They had us back in the larger space once more for this event, where we had previously performed for their Mothers Day Family Night in 2024.
A couple of months later came a booking that had been years in the making.
An event organiser we had worked with many years earlier at the Darra Community Festival was now working with Bunnings Keperra and had been trying to secure a date for us for quite some time.
The challenge with Bunnings events is that several stores will often enquire about the same dates. When there’s a family night at one Bunnings store, it’s happening at all Bunnings stores nationally.
Once one store books the date, that’s it.
After years of trying, we finally made it to Bunnings Keperra for their Christmas Family Night on Thursday 4 December 2025.
Many Australians know Keperra as the real-life inspiration for Hammerbarn from the hit animated series Bluey.
The special Hammerbarn promotion, in which Bunnings Keperra temporarily branded itself to look like Hammerbarn from Bluey, had finished by the time we arrived, but it was still great to finally perform there and tick another Bunnings store off our list.
And the story isn’t over yet.
In 2026, we’re looking forward to performing at Bunnings Rothwell for Father’s Day Family Night on Thursday 3 September 2026.
We’ll then return to Bunnings Manly West, the very first Bunnings store I ever performed at, when we present a puppet show as part of Halloween Family Night on Thursday 29 October 2026.
More than a decade after that first roving puppetry booking, we’ll be back performing a full puppet show for local families at the very same Bunnings store where my Bunnings journey began.
When I look back on ten years of Bunnings events, what stands out isn’t the stores themselves.
It’s the people.
The children laughing at the puppet characters.
The parents sitting alongside them.
The volunteers running stalls.
The community groups raising funds.
The staff members who work hard behind the scenes to make these events happen.
We’ve performed in loading docks, warehouse spaces, timber sections, garden centres, DIY workshop areas and community event zones. We’ve travelled across South East Queensland and beyond. We’ve seen huge crowds, familiar faces and plenty of first-time audience members.
Most of all, we’ve been grateful to be part of something that brings communities together.
Thank you to every Bunnings store that has invited us to perform over the years.
We hope there are many more family nights still to come.
Brett Hansen
Principal Puppeteer
Larrikin Puppets
