Vivid Sydney is back for its fourth year, with a program that will transform the city at night into a colourful canvas of light, music and ideas.
The festival includes free and ticketed events around Circular Quay, The Rocks, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Sydney Opera House. The hugely popular Vivid lights will be switched on every night of the festival from 6.00pm to midnight in a free lighting display around The Rocks and Circular Quay, featuring 50 interactive and immersive light art sculptures, illuminated skyscrapers and large scale 3D mapping projections on the Sydney Opera House, Museum of Contemporary Art and Customs House.
Vivid LIVE at Sydney Opera House will feature a line-up of local and international artists hand selected by Festival Director Fergus Linehan. Cutting-edge German projection artists URBANSCREEN have been invited to weave their creative magic across Sydney Opera House in the festival favourite, Lighting the Sails. The astounding line-up of local and international artists includes as opening night act the critically acclaimed English artist Florence + The Machine, who will perform with the Ceremonial Orchestra, taking over the Concert Hall. Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O will present her "psycho opera" Stop The Virgens; R&B superstar Janelle Monáe will make her long-awaited Australian debut with The ArchAndroid Orchestra; and three of New York's finest creative minds - Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly and Sufjan Stevens - will collaborate on a special commission for Vivid LIVE.
The theatrically lit up canvas of the city will provide the backdrop for a huge meeting of creative industries coming to Sydney to collaborate, foster business connections and showcase new ideas. This year's festival has more than doubled the creative industry events, with over 100 specialist and collaborative events in the Vivid Ideas program, which is curated by Festival Director Jess Scully. Highlights from the Vivid Ideas program include a partnership with the Sydney Film Festival; Chad Dickerson, CEO of Etsy and UK fashion talent Henry Holland, from House of Holland, as well as creative industry conferences X Media Lab, Song Summit, Mumbrella360 and CeBIT Australia.
Tickets for both Vivid LIVE and Vivid Ideas go on sale to the general public on March 22.
