Sydney big light show on again this year

Vivid Sydney
May 27-June 18

Vivid Sydney, one of the world’s largest festivals of light, music and ideas, will run for an additional five nights this year as a result of overwhelming audience responses.

New South Wales Trade, Tourism and Major Events Minister Stuart Ayres said the extraordinary growth of Vivid Sydney is undeniable.  

“In just seven years, Vivid Sydney has established itself as the largest festival of its kind in Australia, attracting a record 1.7 million people in 2015,” Mr Ayres said.  

“The festival has been instrumental in reinforcing Sydney as the creative industries’ hub in the Asia-Pacific region and transforming a traditionally quiet visitor period into one of the year’s busiest, delivering a record $63.2 million in visitor expenditure to NSW last year.”  

More than 112,000 international and domestic overnight travellers specifically visited NSW to enjoy Vivid Sydney in 2015, a 25% increase on 2014.

“Expanding the festival to 23 nights is a significant opportunity for our state's creative, live performance and hospitality businesses as well as the travel industry to extend the positive benefits Vivid Sydney brings to the visitor economy,” Mr Ayres added.  “Sydney is the events capital of Australia and Vivid Sydney is its star, and one that will shine even brighter in 2016."

Destination NSW chief executive and executive producer of Vivid Sydney, Sandra Chipchase, said expanding the festival in 2016 will give visitors more time to experience the spectacular light, music and ideas that illuminate the Harbour City each winter.   “Visitors from across the globe travel to Vivid Sydney. Last year more than 26,000 international visitors came here on Vivid Sydney travel packages and were able to see our iconic buildings bathed in vibrant colour, attend fantastic music events, hear world renowned speakers and see the city transformed into an outdoor gallery on a huge scale,” Ms Chipchase said.

There will be a number of light installation around the Sydney Harbour area including a work by artists Stephanie Shehata and Erin Slaviero who are creating “Kaleidoscope” where the viewer is submerged in the darkness of a shipping container, with mirrored, slanted walls forming a triangular room; inter-reflections between the room and the viewer; and backlit 3D screens in the floor and ceiling. These are intended to create portals of infinite space by manipulating perspective with light and mirrors, merging the ideas of an infinity mirror and an infinity room. 

Campbell’s Cove will be the site of  Tina Fox’s work “Dolly,” which is an immense, 3-m-tall light-up doll made entirely from crochet. She is out of her normal context and out of scale, creating an unusual addition to the urban landscape around Circular Quay.

“Dolly” was designed and handmade as a response to childhood memories of night-lights, bedtime dolls and soft teddies. The doll’s extra-long arms and huggable body beg to be embraced by both children and adults.

“Dolly” is crocheted from 6-mm cotton rope using an extra-large hook and is internally illuminated with metres of LED strip-lights, which cast a dim light through the woven structure. She looks beautiful in the daytime, concealing all trace of electronics and gadgetry, and then softly glows at night to draw attention from passers-by.

Circular Quay will see huge images of Sydney’s flora and fauna projected on to the facade of the Customs House as well as “Affinity” which is an ingenious large-scale lighting installation that attempts to depict the complexity and connectivity of the human brain. Participants step within an intricate web of interconnected orbs representing neurons in the brain. Stimulated by touch, the orbs set-up a striking display of sound and light, representing the rapid-fire transmission of messages between neurons.

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