Sydney Festival, January 10-31, 2009
Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event. Its vast array of indoor and outdoor presentations attract an estimated 1.5 million people annually.
The Festival is a cultural celebration of Sydney in summer and has become synonymous with the energy, style, spectacle, sophistication and cosmopolitan flair which so quintessentially define the city.
In 2008 Sydney Festival introduced Festival First Night to kick start the Festival on January 5. This new, free public event saw the city of Sydney handed back to the people, with over 200 artists performing in five different precincts. Streets, laneways and parks were given over to a day and night of music, dance and celebration with acts including Brian Wilson, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Pink Martini and Spank Rock. Festival First Night will again take place in 2009, on Saturday January 10.
Sydney Festival 2009 will feature the much-heralded outdoor program - including the Domain concerts which each attract in excess of 100,000 people - as well as the very best international and national performing and visual arts, throughout the city and surrounds.
The Festival has generated dozens of Australian commissions and world premieres, many of which have toured internationally.
www.sydneyfestival.org.au