Tens of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders continued ANZAC Day commemorations into Sunday, April 26, as the 111th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings brought record attendance to dawn services from Canberra's Australian War Memorial to the iconic Anzac Cove site in Türkiye. The Australian War Memorial in Canberra reported its largest registered turnout in five years, with crowds estimated at over 40,000 gathering in near-freezing conditions for the pre-dawn ceremony.
In Auckland, the War Memorial Museum's dawn service drew an estimated 25,000 attendees, including New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who laid a wreath on behalf of the nation. Officials from the New Zealand Defence Force noted that community participation in suburban and regional services had also risen sharply, reflecting what organisers described as a generational renewal of interest in commemorative traditions.
At Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula, the traditional dawn service organised by the Australian and New Zealand governments proceeded at first light local time, with several hundred registered attendees making the pilgrimage to the Turkish site. Turkish authorities facilitated access alongside their own national remembrance observances, with the ceremony broadcast live on the ABC and TVNZ platforms.
Lifestyle sections across Australian and New Zealand media focused on the cultural dimension of the day — families cooking traditional ANZAC biscuits, schools sharing student-made tributes online, and a surge in genealogy platform searches as younger generations sought to trace relatives who served. The Royal Australian Historical Society reported a 60 percent spike in archive access requests over the April 25–26 weekend compared to the same period in 2025.
Commemorative marches in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Wellington proceeded through Sunday morning, with veterans' groups and current serving personnel joined by community members. RSL Australia chief executive Craig Ware said the turnout reflected 'an enduring and deepening commitment by ordinary Australians to honour those who served,' and confirmed planning for the 2027 centenary of the formal ANZAC Day public holiday designation was already underway.