Planning a NAIDOC Week Event: Dates, Protocol and What You Need

When NAIDOC Week runs

NAIDOC Week is held in the first full week of July, Sunday to Sunday. In 2027 that is 4 to 11 July. The National NAIDOC Committee confirms the dates and announces the theme each year at naidoc.org.au, along with the winning entry in the National NAIDOC Poster Competition — and the theme is the thing most event plans are built around, so it is worth waiting for rather than guessing.

NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee, the body that organised the original observance. The name stayed after the committee's role changed, which is why it reads as an acronym for something that no longer quite exists.

Settle the protocol questions before you plan anything

This is the part that determines whether a NAIDOC Week event is welcomed or awkward, and it comes first — before the run sheet, before the catering, before any signage.

Whose Country are you on, and have you asked? A Welcome to Country can only be given by a Traditional Owner or Custodian of that place, and it is arranged and paid for like any other professional engagement. An Acknowledgement of Country is different — anyone can give one — and if you are not sure which you are arranging, that is the first call to make. Your local land council or the local Aboriginal community organisation is the right starting point.

Are you involving local community, or performing about them? The difference is whether Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are shaping the event and being paid for their work, or whether the event is being produced about them. Plan the first one. It takes longer and it is the only version worth running.

Whose artwork is on your materials? This one catches organisations out every year. The Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Islander flag each carry their own usage terms, and community artwork belongs to the artist who made it — you cannot lift a design from the internet, and you cannot ask a printer to put one into a template for you. We will not do it, and no reputable printer will. Commissioning a local artist is the right answer, it is normal practice, and we are glad to print the result.

Have you left enough time? Elders, performers and artists are booked months ahead for the first week of July. A May phone call is late.

What a NAIDOC Week event usually involves

The shape is similar across schools, councils and workplaces:

• A flag raising or opening ceremony, with Welcome or Acknowledgement of Country.
• A community event or family day — food, stalls, performance, kids' activities.
• Something educational that is not a one-off: a display, a reading list, a local history session run by someone from the community.
• The poster. The National NAIDOC Poster is a fixture — schools and offices display it and it is available free from naidoc.org.au.
• Recognition of local people, which is usually the part attendees remember.

For a workplace with no budget and no event, the honest minimum is an Acknowledgement of Country, the poster on display, and time given to staff who want to attend a community event elsewhere. That is better than a token morning tea.

The practical list, once protocol is settled

A public NAIDOC Week event needs more wayfinding than organisers expect:

• Entry and welcome signage so people know they are in the right place
• Directional signage from parking to the event
• Stall and activity signs
• A backdrop or banner for the official photographs, which is what the council newsletter and the community organisation both need afterwards
• First aid, water and amenities signage if it is a family day
• Bollard covers along a path if there is a car park to cross

We print NAIDOC Week signs and banners as ready-made designs you edit in the browser: your organisation name, the date, the venue. The corflute is waterproof, which matters for an outdoor event in July, and the frames and stands are reusable so next year is a reprint rather than a new kit.

What our designs do not carry — and this is deliberate — is any flag, any community artwork, or any claim of endorsement. That space is yours to fill with artwork you have commissioned or been given permission to use. It is your event and your relationship with your community; a printer's template is not the place that gets decided.

If you are planning the whole year

NAIDOC Week sits alongside two other dates most organisations plan together: National Reconciliation Week, 27 May to 3 June, and National Sorry Day on 26 May immediately before it. Those are commemorative where NAIDOC Week is a celebration, and the tone of the signage is different for each.

The full list of dates we print for is on the awareness day signs page.