Broken Heel Festival: the last train to Broken Hill

Some events you attend. Others you make a pilgrimage to. Broken Heel was the second kind — five days in outback New South Wales celebrating Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, held at the Palace Hotel in Broken Hill, where the film left its heels thirty years ago. In September 2024 the festival took its final bow. We were on the train to pay homage.

The train

It's called the Silver City Stiletto, and it departs Sydney as a train and arrives in Broken Hill as a party that happens to have wheels. The hours out west were broken up with games, drag shows in the aisles, and regular expeditions to the bar cart. By hour two, strangers were friends. By Broken Hill, we were family. The festival didn't wait for Broken Hill — it started somewhere around the first singalong.

The Fabulous Wonder Mama

Less a train ride than a travelling variety show — thirteen hours of games, performances and well-organised shenanigans. This was really the festivals opening act!

The tents

We went the glamping route — a field of white bell tents on the edge of town. Not, historically, our preferred style of accommodation: the comforts we'd grown accustomed to were noticeably absent. But dawn comes up golden over that canvas village, the day's first laughter carries from three tents over, and somewhere between the footy-block showers and beers at sunset, we stopped noticing what was missing. Some places you book for comfort. This one we booked for the memories — and it made the festival.

The five days

The shape of it, for the record — five days, three of them ticketed:

Thursday. The Welcome Party, where the crowd sorts itself into no groups at all — every age in the room, every state of Australia, a respectable showing of the rest of the world. Friday. The Frock On or Frock Off party. The name is the dress code and the dress code is enforced by enthusiasm. Saturday. The Main Drag street parade — the town's actual main street surrendered to floats, feathers and frocks. We watched from the comfort of a pub balcony, as if sitting in a box at the opera. Saturday night. The Shin-dig. Sunday. Bloody Mary Bingo at the MooMoo Breakkie — the civilised way to negotiate with Saturday night — then the day out at Silverton (my fave!), then Priscilla itself, screened outdoors under actual desert stars. Monday. Officially "revival." Interpret as needed.

Silverton, in kaftans

The unexpected keeper. Silverton is a near-ghost town of red dirt and pub — and for one afternoon a few hundred festivalgoers took it over, camped up in kaftans against the desert, artists & entertainers working the sand dunes. It's the day the festival seemed to really come to life: sequins against saltbush, glitter against dust, feathers floating in the breeze.

The Elton

Among the headliners — Marcia Hines, no less, for the finale year. The Elton John Experience. Not quite the real thing, and the room decided within one song that it did not matter in the slightest.

The screening

Nobody in Broken Hill watches Priscilla. The town performs it back. The final-night outdoor screening was less cinema than call-and-response — every favourite line shouted at the screen by an audience that had clearly rehearsed for thirty years. If you've only ever seen the film in a lounge room, have you ever really seen it?

For the record

Broken Heel ended with that 2024 edition — thirty years after the film, on its own terms, at full volume. You can't book it anymore, and we're glad we didn't wait. Broken Hill and Silverton are still there, still cinematic, and the Palace still pours. But the festival itself is the lesson The Studio brought home: some doors don't stay open. When the next impossible thing appears on the map — then get out and see it, because it might not be there for long.