Bonkers public antics fill Sydney's streets at festival time
It’s high summer in Sydney and the city is alive with festival fever!
The sun-soaked Harbour City has kicked off the New Year, as it does every year, with what is perhaps Australia’s favourite festival – and of course the obligatory fringe events, fireworks (lots and lots of fireworks) and related high-jinks. The city’s atmosphere is pure summertime joy.
With the nation still on a high from Christmas (and still hanging from New Year), the party continues through the Sydney Fest, covering the Australia Day public holiday and ferry race, and running all the way to the end of a glorious month.
January in the UK is, let’s face it, pretty grim. In Sydney it’s the best time of the year, ever. Lazy bank holidays involving beaches and barbecues, outdoor cinemas, new year’s resolutions that are easy to keep when the wholesome great outdoors beckons, fireworks ping from skycrapers, and of course every sort of live music sounds waft through the sultry air.
The festival is packed with concerts, gigs, theatre, arms-in-the-air-yelling moments, top name international artists,
On the First Night, half the city takes to the streets, lanes and parks – all cleared of traffic – in a free hedonistic celebration, involving something for everyone from dance parties to violins or gentle jazz to quirky child-orientated afternoon gems.
This year, over 600 major local and international musicians, dancers and DJs have been giving passrersby a sneak preview of the goodies to come, from dozens of open-air stages erected throughout the city centre, is a sort of sampler smorgasbord of the good stuff to come.
There’s plenty more free stuff too, including the beautiful Dawn Chorus, a series of moving performances from the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs who sing the sun up on Sydney’s golden beaches. Whether it’s the beginning of a promising January day or the end of a long night on the tiles, the sight of the sun being sung slowly out of the Pacific, by a floating updraft of harmonious voices, while you sit and watch on the soft, pristine sand, cannot be forgotten.
There are wander-by concerts – and often free salsa dancing to  live Latino bands – on floating stages at Darling Harbour, and city parks belting out everything from hip-hop acts to arthouse movies. The Speigeltent serves up beers to comedians, live funk and folk bands into the wee hours, and strategically placed pianos in public areas invite passersby to sit down for a sing-song or just practice their scales.
And the bonkers ferry race, in which the city’s trusty public harbour boats race along Port Jackson on Australia Day (26th January), watched by thousands of picnicking Sydneysiders enjoying their paid day off on the foreshore.
And that’s just some of the free stuff. The city’s concert halls, Opera House and performance spaces host a rich menu of ticket-only international must-sees for highbrow culture vultures.
My favourite festival moments are the free concerts in the Domain. Jazz in the Domain one weekend, Symphony in the Domain the next, Opera in the Domain if you’re lucky. We pack a bottle of wine (though there are bars there for when it runs out) but only bothered to bring a picnic once, because we ended up ignoring it after discovering the superior delights of the food stalls. We arrive at about 5pm to bagsy a good spot with a view of the stage, throwing down rugs on the grass and texting friends to direct them to the correct rug in the vast city-centre park carpeted with the things. By the time the show begins, it’s a mission to pick your way through the legs, camp chairs and sleeping children to the portaloos.
But what joy! Every year I’ve been, the Symphony in the Domain has ended on the grand of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, with fireworks exploding from the summits of nearby buildings at the finale.
This is the best time of year to be in Sydney. If you can get there, do it, and you will forever remember a city so full of vivacity, spectacle and fun that it’ll frame your view of the city forever.
Sydney Festival, January 10-31 2009, www.sydneyfestival.org.au
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