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Sydney Events Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival
The Sydney Festival is a major event that happens in January which generally is a holiday month. The Festival attracts thousands of people to the centre and can easily be considered a celebration of Sydney.
Originally conceived by the New South Wales government, the first ever Sydney Festival took place in 1977 and has grown over the years to become one of the most celebrated annual events of Australia attracting visitors from all corners of the world. It offers to the world a cultural fusion that is an attractive blend of the modern and the classic, the popular and the intellectual, the aesthetic and the intelligent forms of the different arts. The celebration proclaims to the world the culture, dynamism and beauty of the city that hosts it. For three weeks every January, the Festival welcomes the world to a presentation of around 80 events involving over 500 artists from all over the world. The Festival is a confluence of theatre, music, drama, dance and several other performing arts along with forums, discussions, and conferences on such.
The venues of all the major theatres in Sydney like the Sydney Opera House, City Recital Hall, CarriageWorks, and the Sydney Theatre are made use of for the wide range of events that form part of the Sydney Festival. Free outdoor events like the Domain Concerts also form part of the Sydney Festival. The Domain Concerts itself attracts around 100,000 people at a time to the Festival. From 2008, the visitors to the Festival are going to see a new event, the Festival First Night. This will be a highly celebrated event bringing together music and performance, and is expected to attract almost double the number of visitors to the city.
The Sydney Festival has always presented Australian premieres and has presented several now-famous theatrical productions. The Sydney Festival has also played a significant role in cultivating local artists and their works of art. The famous Cloudstreet is a result of such ventures.
