‘No photoshopping, no AI, it’s pure hair creativity’: the festival where haircutting is a spectator sport | Australian fashion

At the entrance of the Hair festival in Sydney’s ICC exhibition centre in late June, mannequin heads with luscious locks silently cast me as a fraud. I’m no hairdresser and this is an industry-only event for hairdressers, barbers and stylists. Rainbow cheetah-print buzz cuts, sea-green rat-tails and blunt mullets – on human heads – pass me by as I make my way into the centre of it all.

Bass-heavy music echoes around the hall and the crowd heaves with excitement as a large timer counts down to the final 10 seconds. Pushing through the crowd, I’m trying to get a view of the most popular event of the day, the live hair cutting competition.

Three events – the barber competition, the emerging talent barber and the women’s cutting competition – are all taking place on the floor at the same time. Approximately 30 competitors and their models are wedged almost shoulder to shoulder, across five benches. The models’ hair falls to the floor softly, while the competitors standing behind them are a flurry of hands and scissors.

They’ve had half an hour to deliver a technically proficient haircut and time is closing in on them. The only criteria they need to meet is to cut a minimum 1.5cm of hair. Aside from that, judges are assessing less tangible metrics: creativity, trendiness and suitability to the model. The overall winner is the person who accumulates the greatest number of points, and competitors can enter in multiple events.

The timer rings out and the MC grows increasingly disgruntled as he repeatedly tells the competitors to down tools and to stop touching their models’ hair. One model looks as if he needed more time in the chair – a noticeable chunk of hair is missing on one side of his head. Other hairstyles are quite simple, with tapered fades or clean lines. Another model sports a mullet with silver sparkles; a star stamped on one side dazzles in the fluorescent light.

Newcomer Jeremy Stott only became a barber eight months ago. This is his first competition, and he admits the style he chose would be hard to pull off in the time limit: an anime-inspired look that’s long at the front and spiked at the back.

Some competitors have roped their friends into getting a free haircut, but Stott’s model is one of his regular clients. “He’s got really, really nice hair that’s super thick, so I was a bit panicked about the time,” says Stott. “My hands got crazy shaky towards the end … But I think we did all right.”

Stott “never in a million years” expected to be a barber, let alone a competitive one. But two years ago, he was in a serious motorcycle accident: “I broke my neck and my back and my leg and both my wrists.”

Lying in bed during his recovery, the former engineer decided to commit to being a barber – a job aspiration he had entertained, but never seriously considered.

Stott made the pilgrimage from Melbourne for the event; others came from regional Victoria and the NSW Central Coast. Some competitors have travelled in groups with their salon colleagues; there’s a warm collegiate buzz to the air.

The competitions are a particular highlight, says Joanne Cowan, national sales director at the Intermedia group, the organisation that runs the event, now in its fifth year. “People love the opportunity to do something live,” says Cowan. “There’s no photoshopping, there’s no AI … it’s pure hair creativity.”

On the other side of the convention centre, the festival’s braiding competition is taking place. With 13 braiders, it’s not as busy as the main stage but there is a rapt audience mainly consisting of friends and family of the competitors.

Competitors have to complete four box braids on one model in an hour, no mean feat given that braiding one person’s hair, depending on the complexity, can take a whole day.

Lea Avery is a 12-year braiding veteran, and although many of the competitors are her friends, she was nervous onstage. Still, she says: “I don’t care about winning, I’m just happy I showed up and gave it a go.”

Like Stott, this is Avery’s first time attending and competing at an industry event. She is quick to point out the lack of diversity in its offerings. There’s a braid competition – a first for the event – but only two afro hair stalls out of 150. Avery hopes to one day have her own stall at the event to shed light on the afro and Polynesian hair community.

By lunchtime, back on the main stage, the mood is flagging. It’s been two hours since the live cutting competition finished and there’s a delay in announcing the winners. The adrenaline of performing onstage has worn off and most competitors are slouched around the hall.

Then the MC starts announcing the barber styling winners: the third place, second place, then finally: can number nine come to the stage?

Cheers and yells of “Jezza!” arise from Stott’s beaming barbershop colleagues. Stott ends up taking home first place in the barber styling competition and is the 2026 overall barber champion.

Afterwards he is vibrating with happiness. “I was hoping for maybe, at best, third place,” says Stott. “I’m just happy that I have that [the award] to prove to myself.”

What is he going to do now that he’s both the barber master and champion? “I don’t know. Go back and cut hair.”