Students at Fortitude Valley State Secondary College have been left waiting at the kerb after their dedicated school bus repeatedly failed to arrive on time, with one recent incident seeing the service run more than 13 minutes early, leaving families with no warning and no way to track it down.
The problems centre on route 931, which serves the college, and have drawn growing frustration from local parents who say the service has been unreliable for some time. The situation came to a head recently when one mother waited more than half an hour for the bus to arrive. When she contacted Translink, she was allegedly told the service had already run, having turned up well ahead of its scheduled stop time.
Brisbane City, which manages dedicated school bus routes, acknowledged the early departure was the result of human error. But at least one affected parent pushed back on that framing, arguing that a bus which arrives early without waiting amounts to the same thing as one that never shows up.
Photo credit: Google Street View
Compounding the frustration is the absence of real-time tracking. A feature that previously allowed families to follow the bus through an app was removed when an updated version of the app launched last year. Parents say that without it, they have no way of knowing whether the bus is running late, has already passed, or is not coming at all, leaving students and parents in the dark at the stop.
The 931 timetable was revised at the start of this school year, with most weekday morning services adjusted to target a 9:10am arrival at the college. Wednesday services run slightly earlier, aiming for 8:55am ahead of a 9:05am assembly. Despite those changes, parents say late Wednesday arrivals have persisted. Some families have reportedly received communication from the school flagging ongoing punctuality issues linked to the service.
Transport chair Andrew Wines acknowledged the concerns, saying the council regarded student safety as a fundamental priority and was continuously monitoring its network. He indicated the issues specific to route 931 were being actively addressed.
For Fortitude Valley families, the immediate ask is straightforward: consistent timetabling and the restoration of a tool that tells them where their children’s bus actually is. Until those issues are resolved, the uncertainty that has defined this term for many local families is unlikely to ease.
QUT Business School, located at the Gardens Point Campus in Brisbane, has once again been recognised as one of the best in the world, maintaining the rare honour of Triple Crown accreditation following its latest AACSB re-accreditation.
The renewal, combined with a recent EQUIS re-accreditation and a 2023 AMBA re-accreditation, confirms QUT’s place among a group so exclusive that fewer than one per cent of business schools globally hold all three credentials simultaneously.
Back in 2005, QUT became the first business school in Australia to achieve Triple Crown status, a distinction it has maintained ever since.
Professor Sharon Christensen, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law, said the AACSB renewal was a reflection of the school’s ongoing commitment to excellence across teaching, research, and industry engagement — not simply a periodic compliance exercise. She noted that the rigorous peer-review process examined the depth of academic capability, the quality of student experience, and the real-world impact of the school’s research and partnerships.
Photo credit: LinkedIn/QUT Business School
The AACSB, founded in 1916, is the world’s largest standard-setting body for business education, counting more than 1,900 member organisations across over 100 countries and territories. Yet membership alone is no guarantee of accreditation. Only six per cent of institutions worldwide that offer business degrees have cleared the bar. In Australia, just 24 institutions carry the credential.
For prospective students weighing up their options, that context matters. Professor Christensen noted that accreditation provides meaningful assurance that QUT’s degrees meet internationally recognised standards, that the curriculum is demanding, future-focused, and built around genuine connections to business, government, and community.
The Triple Crown itself carries weight precisely because it is hard to earn and harder still to keep. Each of the three accrediting bodies, AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA, conducts its own independent review process, making the simultaneous achievement of all three particularly demanding. Professor Christensen noted that the school viewed Triple Crown accreditation not as a destination but as an ongoing discipline, one embedded in how QUT Business School teaches, researches, and engages on a continuing basis.
For a school based in the heart of Brisbane, with campuses at Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove, the international recognition carries local significance. It signals to students and partners, locally and internationally, that QUT meets the highest global standards in business education.
With the re-accreditation secured, QUT Business School has reaffirmed its standing among the world’s leading institutions, a position it has held, and worked to maintain, for two decades.
Emergency crews responded shortly before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, 3 March 2026, after reports of smoke coming from the basement of a building on Margaret Street in Brisbane CBD.
Smoke was reported rising from the basement to as high as the third floor of the building. Firefighters, police and ambulance crews attended the scene after the incident was reported.
Six fire trucks were dispatched as part of the response. Firefighters wearing respirators were seen entering and leaving the basement carpark while crews assessed the situation.
The 15-storey mixed-use building was evacuated during the incident. Office workers were reported to have exited the building in a calm and orderly manner while emergency services worked at the site.
A construction site located next to number 46 was also evacuated as a precaution. The evacuation extended beyond the building itself as crews worked to ensure safety in the surrounding area.
Traffic Disruption On Margaret Street
Margaret Street was closed to traffic during the emergency response. The closure brought traffic along the street to a halt while firefighters and other emergency personnel remained at the scene.
Office workers were seen waiting outside on the footpath while the Brisbane CBD fire response continued.
The incident caused disruption in the city centre during the morning as authorities managed the situation.
The fire involved a Maserati located in the basement of the building. Witnesses said the vehicle had been parked in the basement for an extended period before the incident occurred.
The cause of the fire had not been confirmed. No confirmed public information was available regarding injuries connected to the incident.
At this stage, the established details remain the evacuation of the building, the emergency response, and the traffic disruption linked to the Brisbane CBD fire.
A revised development application has been lodged for a high-rise apartment building at the heritage-listed former bread factory site in Fortitude Valley.
The proposal relates to 36 Warry Street within the complex known as The Baker’s Grounds. An associated property at 39 Kennigo Street is also listed.
The development application, numbered A006963038, was submitted on 17 February 2026 and is recorded as in progress. It seeks approval to carry out building work and a material change of use, with the assessment listed at code level. RG Property Pty Ltd is named as the primary applicant, with Urbis Pty Ltd identified as consultant.
Photo Credit: DA/A006963038
Background Of The Heritage Complex
The brick complex was originally constructed in 1916 as Keating’s Bread Factory. Bread production ceased around the end of World War II.
Parts of the former ovens and stables used for horse deliveries remain on site. The property was listed as a local heritage place in 2004. The site sits between Warry Street and Kennigo Street, about 250 metres from Victoria Park. It is currently used largely as office space under the name The Baker’s Grounds.
Photo Credit: DA/A006963038
Revised Tower Plans In Fortitude Valley
Updated plans describe a residential tower containing 100 apartments. The building height has been reported in two different ways, with one account describing 17 storeys and another referring to 20 storeys.
The revised proposal follows an earlier 15-storey scheme approved in December 2024, which was reported as allowing 111 units. The updated plan reduces the residential yield to 100 apartments. Design documentation for the revised proposal has been prepared by DAH Architecture.
Process milestones include the commencement of the confirmation period on 27 February 2026 and a properly made date of 2 March 2026. A decision notice date is not yet recorded. No construction start date has been confirmed, and existing tenancies continue to operate at the Fortitude Valley site while the application remains under assessment.
Brisbane’s most colourful inner-city precinct will provide the backdrop for a major new six-part ABC crime drama, with Queensland production company Moving Floor Entertainment set to begin filming Fortitude Valley in the suburb from April 2026 ahead of its 2027 national premiere on ABC TV and ABC iview.
The announcement confirms that one of Brisbane’s most cinematically distinctive and culturally loaded neighbourhoods is finally getting the screen treatment many have long argued it deserves. The series places Fortitude Valley at the centre of a crime thriller that moves through family secrets, underground power structures and the moral compromises that accumulate in a precinct where extremes of wealth and poverty have always coexisted within a few city blocks of each other. For residents and regulars of the Valley, the prospect of seeing their suburb rendered on screen with the full weight of a prestige Australian drama behind it carries a particular kind of significance.
The Series and the Story
Fortitude Valley is a six-part crime thriller exploring underground crime syndicates, family secrets, corruption and power plays set in the Queensland capital. The series stars AACTA Award-winning First Nations actor Hunter Page-Lochard, known for Reckless and The Newsreader, alongside acclaimed actress Kat Stewart, whose credits include Offspring, Black Snow and Five Bedrooms.
Photo Credit: QPS
Page-Lochard is not only the lead actor but one of the series’ three co-writers, sharing writing credits with Moving Floor Entertainment co-founders Stephen M. Irwin and Leigh McGrath. Direction falls to Sian Davies, with Andy Walker producing and Ross Allsop serving as co-producer. Executive producers are Irwin, McGrath, Greg Sitch and Page-Lochard, with ABC executive producers Brett Sleigh and Rachel Okine overseeing for the national broadcaster. International distribution is handled by DCD Rights.
The series carries major production investment from Screen Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Screen Queensland, and will film and complete post-production entirely within Queensland.
The Company Behind It
Moving Floor Entertainment was founded in 2020 by Brisbane-based writer-producers Stephen M. Irwin and Leigh McGrath, who had previously collaborated for seven years across productions including Harrow, Tidelands and Secrets and Lies. The company launched with a clear commitment to produce high-end drama from Queensland for international audiences, and Fortitude Valley marks its most significant project to date.
The pedigree behind the series is substantial. Irwin co-created the forensic crime series Harrow for the ABC, created and wrote Secrets and Lies, which the ABC Network later remade in the United States, and co-created the Tidelands for Netflix. McGrath co-created and co-executive produced all three seasons of Harrow and co-created Five Bedrooms, which now airs on Paramount Plus, Peacock and BBC One. Both have worked extensively with major broadcasters in the United Kingdom and the United States. Fortitude Valley marks the first project they have brought to screen where Brisbane’s streets are not merely a backdrop but the explicit subject of the story itself.
McGrath graduated from Griffith University in 1994, and his return to produce a landmark series set in his home city represents the kind of career arc that the Queensland screen industry has spent decades working to make possible.
Why Fortitude Valley
The Valley’s particular geography of contrasts, the Chinatown precinct, the heritage-listed Art Deco facades, Brunswick Street’s strip of venues and late-night trade, the social services concentrated along its edges and the significant levels of disadvantage that persist alongside recent gentrification, gives the series a built-in visual and thematic richness that few Australian suburbs can offer. It is a place where multiple Brisbanes overlap: the tourist precinct and the struggling community, the developer’s vision and the street-level reality.
Those contrasts have made Fortitude Valley fertile ground for storytelling across its history. The suburb’s real-world story includes the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police and political corruption that ran from 1987 to 1989 and fundamentally changed the relationship between law enforcement, vice industries and civic power in Queensland. The inquiry’s findings emerged largely from the Valley itself. A crime drama set in contemporary Fortitude Valley carries the weight of that history whether it addresses it explicitly or not, and it gives the series a depth of local cultural memory that purely fictional settings cannot replicate.
What It Means for Queensland Screen
The Fortitude Valley production joins a growing slate of work that positions Queensland as a serious force in the Australian drama landscape. Screen Queensland’s current supported productions include Muster Dogs, Dance with Tom, Troppo Season Two and the upcoming Dustfall. Fortitude Valley, backed by both Screen Australia and Screen Queensland through the Screen Finance Fund and the Post, Digital and Visual Effects Incentive, represents the largest locally created drama production the state has supported in recent years.
Every cast and crew position, every day of location shooting through the Valley’s streets and laneways, every post-production hour completed in Queensland contributes to an industry infrastructure that needs exactly this kind of sustained, high-profile investment to retain and develop the talent pipeline that makes future productions possible.
Filming begins in Brisbane in April 2026. Fortitude Valley airs on ABC TV and ABC iview in 2027.
Decades after defining a new sound for rock and roll, the legendary Black Crowes are set to reaffirm their powerful legacy with a long-awaited return performance in Brisbane’s vibrant Fortitude Valley.
This announcement marks a significant moment for local music fans, as it’s the band’s first appearance in the area since 2022. Known for their unique blend of classic rock and southern charm, the Crowes have maintained a passionate following, keeping the spirit of raw, authentic rock alive for over three decades.
Central to The Black Crowes’ identity is the creative partnership, and often dramatic relationship, between brothers Chris and Rich Robinson. Formed in Georgia, USA, the band forged a sound that paid homage to the greats of the 1970s, like The Rolling Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd, while forging their own path through the changing musical landscape of the 1990s.
This brotherly dynamic, marked by both brilliance and public friction leading to past breakups, is a well-known part of the band’s history that often adds to the intensity of their live shows. After a five-year separation, the brothers officially reunited in 2019, much to the delight of fans worldwide.
The Black Crowes burst onto the scene in 1990 with their debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, which achieved massive commercial success and multiple platinum certifications. Songs like the acoustic classic “She Talks to Angels” and their cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” cemented their place in rock history.
Their follow-up album, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, further defined their reputation for extended, blues-based jams and a refusal to rely on modern studio production tricks. This dedication to an organic sound has been a hallmark of their entire career. The upcoming Fortitude Valley performance is expected to feature a career-spanning setlist, celebrating these fan favourites alongside material from their recent release.
Reaffirming their continued relevance in the music world, The Black Crowes recently released their first album of new material in fifteen years, titled Happiness Bastards. The album’s critical and commercial reception has been significant, earning the band a GRAMMY nomination.
In addition to this recent honour, the group is also currently nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a recognition of their substantial contribution to the evolution of modern rock music over the past three decades. This new chapter in their journey demonstrates that the band’s energy and passion remain strong.
The band will be bringing their renowned live performance style back to Australia, with the highly anticipated Brisbane concert scheduled for Monday, 6 April 2026. This performance at the Fortitude Music Hall, located in the heart of Fortitude Valley, promises to be a memorable night of rock and roll, delivering the raw and soulful experience that has defined The Black Crowes’ enduring legacy.
The new Brisbane CBD Birkenstock store is located at Brisbane Arcade, 117 Adelaide Street. The Arcade has been heritage-listed since 1924 and has long housed fashion retailers and artisan jewellers.
Photo Credit: Birkenstock/LinkedIn
The brand stated the location aligns with its longstanding focus on craftsmanship. The opening marks Birkenstock’s first official store in Queensland.
According to company information, the Brisbane CBD site operates as a partner store. The addition brings the brand’s total store count to four across Australia’s east coast. The Sydney store is also listed as a partner store, while two other locations are operated directly by the company.
Photo Credit: Birkenstock/LinkedIn
Media Launch And Public Activation
The store opening was marked by a media evening held earlier in February 2026. Invited guests were given a preview of the retail space, with archived Birkenstock pieces displayed as part of the event.
A two-day public activation followed at Queen Street Mall. The activation included a branded claw machine and complimentary refreshments. Visitors were also offered vouchers, foot care products and tote bags during the promotion.
Photo Credit: Birkenstock/LinkedIn
Acquisition Background And National Expansion
The Brisbane CBD Birkenstock opening follows the acquisition of Birkenstock Australia Pty. Ltd., the brand’s long-standing distributor. The transaction was finalised by the end of October 2025.
Birkenstock Australia has operated since the 1990s and employs around 60 staff. For the financial year ending June 30, 2025, the business recorded annual revenue of $88.6 million. The company is headquartered in Melbourne, operates an online store, and maintains a distribution network of more than 300 business-to-business partners.
After establishing a strong community in Fortitude Valley, local clean-up crew Rubbish Club is taking its simple but effective formula for human connection to suburbs across Brisbane and beyond.
Rubbish Club, the social initiative founded by Magnus Murray-Douglass as an initiative of his recyclables business Boe Design, has grown into a promising success story. Every Saturday, members meet up for a coffee and a chat before grabbing a pair of grippers and spending an hour walking a couple of blocks, picking up litter along the way. No experience required. No ongoing commitment. Just people, pavement, and a pair of grippers.
Photo credit: rubbishclub.com.au
What began as a desire to make new friends and clean up the streets has since expanded well beyond Fortitude Valley’s footpaths. Having built a loyal following in the suburb, Rubbish Club has rolled out to Bayside and continues to grow across the city, with Murray-Douglass eyeing further expansion around Australia.
The timing is not accidental. Rubbish Club arrived at a moment when many young Australians were quietly souring on the social lives their screens had promised them. A 2025 poll conducted for the Foundation for Social Health found that around 91 per cent of Gen Z respondents felt social media was undermining their real-world relationships, with more than half reporting that time spent on platforms left them feeling distressed and distracted. Murray-Douglass had felt that tension himself — and Rubbish Club was his answer to it.
The inspiration, he has said, came partly from watching the rise of running clubs and recognising that young people were actively searching for more connection in their communities. As someone who didn’t identify as a runner, he saw an opportunity to create something with a lower barrier to entry, a way to meet people, get outside, and do something useful at the same time.
Why join the Rubbish Club?
Photo credit: rubbishclub.com.au
The club’s format strips away everything that makes modern socialising feel high-stakes. Attendance is free. Comfortable clothes and enclosed shoes are all you need. Eligible containers collected during walks are deposited through the Container Deposit Scheme, helping to fund the club’s operations, and any plastics gathered are recycled through Boe Design, which manufactures furniture from recyclable materials.
Murray-Douglass has noted that cigarette butts are by far the most common item collected — frequently found right next to a bin. It’s a small frustration, but one that hasn’t dampened the club’s spirit. The social dimension, he has emphasised, is at the heart of what makes it work. Without the ability to bring strangers together and build a group of like-minded people, he has said, the whole thing would fall apart.
The commitment asked of members is deliberately modest — meetups run for about an hour, equipment is provided on the day, and participants can come weekly or drop in whenever life allows.
Rubbish Club sits within a broader wave of in-person social initiatives taking hold across Brisbane, with young people increasingly seeking out spaces where connection happens face-to-face. Those interested can follow @rubbishclub.aus on Instagram or sign up at rubbishclub.com.au.
A new cancer rehabilitation centre opening in Fortitude Valley this Thursday aims to offer Queensland patients access to an Australian-developed therapy designed to ease the side effects of conventional cancer treatment.
The Leading Light Rehab Clinic will provide OncoLaser therapy, a low-level laser treatment developed by the clinic’s co-directors Kate Perkins and Dr Catherine Norton.
The therapy uses photobiomodulation—a process that stimulates cellular energy production—to help manage complications that can arise from chemotherapy, radiation, surgery and immunotherapy. According to Dr Norton, who serves as the clinic’s CEO, the treatment is intended to work alongside standard cancer care rather than replace it.
“It uses low-level laser therapy to support healthy tissue before, during and after chemotherapy, radiation and surgery,” Dr Norton said. The approach focuses on reducing painful side effects rather than treating cancer cells directly.
Ms Perkins, who co-developed the OncoLaser system, said the technology aims to fill gaps in supportive oncological care. “Opening at Leading Light Rehab Clinic allows us to extend these services to more patients in Brisbane in a collaborative healthcare environment,” she said.
The treatment is described as non-invasive and opioid-free, targeting issues such as oral mucositis, radiation dermatitis, delayed wound healing, pain and certain neuropathy symptoms that can result from cancer treatment.
The clinic’s opening event will feature a panel discussion with oncology and integrative health specialists. Dr David Schlecht, a radiation oncologist at The Wesley Hospital, will discuss recent developments in radiation oncology.
“Equally important is ensuring patients have access to supportive therapies that help manage side effects, support healing and maintain quality of life throughout their treatment journey,” Dr Schlecht said.
The clinic plans to work with cancer treatment centres, GPs, surgeons and allied health professionals across the region. OncoLaser has indicated plans to expand its network across regional Australia through partnerships with local health providers.
Two back-to-back immersive cocktail bars are set to open in Fortitude Valley next month, with Alcotraz launching on March 20 followed by the Australian debut of Moonshine Saloon on April 10, both operating from the new Fever Hub venue at 123 Gotha Street.
The two experiences arrive from UK immersive hospitality group Inventive Productions, which has built a devoted following for Alcotraz since its London debut in 2017 before expanding to Sydney and Melbourne. Brisbane becomes the latest city to join that roster, and unusually, it gets both experiences at once. For Fortitude Valley residents and inner-Brisbane night-lifers, the double opening adds a genuinely new entertainment format to a precinct already known for its dining and bar scene.
A Prison Bar and a Wild West Saloon Walk Into the Same Building
Alcotraz puts guests behind bars, literally. On arrival, each guest is issued an inmate number and orange jumpsuit before being processed into a speakeasy-style cell block where actors playing guards, fellow inmates and bootlegging accomplices drive a rolling narrative around them. Four cocktails are included in the ticket price, among them the Crime of Passion, a vodka-based drink with passionfruit liqueur, strawberry purée, lime, cranberry and orange, and the Conspiracy, built around mezcal, burnt coconut tequila, chocolate butter and pineapple. Mocktails, beer and wine are also available. The experience draws loosely on the cultural world of Prison Break, Orange Is the New Black and The Shawshank Redemption, though the tone is firmly playful rather than grim.
Photo Credit:Supplied
Moonshine Saloon arrives three weeks later with a different setting but a connected story. Set during American Prohibition in the Wild West, the experience centres on a character called Clyde Cassidy, described as the king of the Moonshiners, whose story intersects with the Alcotraz narrative. The two experiences are designed to be taken as a series, rewarding guests who do both with a fuller picture of the shared fictional underworld. Moonshine Saloon is the first iteration of the concept outside London and its first appearance in Australia.
Photo Credit:Supplied
Both venues operate at the Fever Hub at 123 Gotha Street, Fortitude Valley, where they run side by side.
A Growing Taste for Immersive Entertainment
The arrival of both concepts in Brisbane reflects a broader shift in how people approach a night out. Immersive dining and drinking experiences have grown steadily across Australia’s major cities over the past decade, from escape rooms to theatrical dining, and Inventive Productions sits at the more polished end of that spectrum. The company entertains hundreds of thousands of guests annually across its productions and positions its venues explicitly as theatre sets you drink inside, with professional casts and original narratives rather than simply themed décor.
Photo Credit:Supplied
The format suits occasions that benefit from a shared story and a built-in structure: birthday celebrations, hens and bucks nights, corporate outings and date nights all feature in the suggested uses, and the option to cast one guest as an undercover mole or a hapless character adds an element of surprise that traditional bar formats cannot replicate.
Photo Credit:Supplied
Tickets and What to Expect
Sessions at both venues run with limited capacity and are ticketed, with walk-ins accommodated where possible. Tickets start at $65 and include the performance and four drinks. Both experiences are strictly 18 and over.
Alcotraz tickets are on sale now at alcotraz.com/brisbane, with sessions beginning March 20, 2026. Moonshine Saloon tickets go on general sale Wednesday March 11; a waitlist for exclusive pre-sale access is live now at moonshinesaloon.com/brisbane. Both venues are located at Fever Hub, 123 Gotha Street, Fortitude Valley.
