Brisbane's turned its river into a nightly light show, and it's the best free thing in the city right now

Brisbane has turned its own river into a nightly light show, and unlike most council funded spectacles, this one is actually worth leaving the couch for.

Bright Nights by ANZ runs through Brisbane Festival until September 26, with free fifteen minute shows three times a night at Festival Village, South Bank. Floating fountains, waterscreens and water jets shooting up to 80 metres high get pierced by a full laser show, all set to an exclusive soundtrack from Brisbane's own Veronicas. Each performance opens with a Welcome to Country from Yuggera and Turrbal man Shannon Ruska, tying the whole thing back to the river it is staged on.

Over at South Bank's Spiegeltent, the festival is also running The Choir of Man through September 26, alongside a genre mashing country meets opera show called Are You Lonesome Tonight. Between the river show and the tent lineup, there is a genuinely full night out without needing to book a single restaurant table.

What makes Bright Nights worth the mention over the usual festival filler is the price tag: free, every night, no ticket required. You can watch from the bridges or either bank of the river, so this is not a scramble for a limited number of seats either. Bring a picnic blanket and you have covered an entire evening for the cost of whatever you packed.

This is also ANZ's third year backing the show as a major partner, which says something about how much return a brand can get from sponsoring a genuinely well made public spectacle rather than another billboard. People remember the night they watched water jets and lasers over the Brisbane River far longer than they remember a logo on a bus stop.

Brisbane Festival runs a genuinely packed program every September, but the free, high spectacle events tend to be the ones that actually pull in people who would not otherwise buy a ticket to anything. A laser show over the river you already walk past every day is exactly that kind of drawcard, and it does not ask you to plan ahead, dress up or spend a cent to enjoy it.