Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event running every January since it was first held in 1977. Its program features around 80 events including contemporary and classical music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and artist talks. The festival attracts an estimated 1 million people to its ticketed shows and large-scale free outdoor events.
Sydney Festival was established by the Sydney Committee, the NSW State Government and the City of Sydney with a view to attracting people into the city centre during the summer holiday month of January. In many ways it is probably still best understood as a celebration of Sydney and what the city has to offer. Attendees are predominantly Sydneysiders with a growing national and international audience.
For three weeks the Festival offers a program of around 300 performances and 80 events involving more than 1000 artists from Australia and abroad covering dance, theatre, music, visual arts, cross media and forums. In any given year, the program's diversity might include burlesque circus to New York rap to Russian theatre; from contemporary dance to family programs to traditional Indigenous arts practice. The Festival uses at least 20 venues including the city's main theatre venues such as Sydney Theatre, CarriageWorks, City Recital Hall and venues at Sydney Opera House, as well as community halls, parks and the city steets themselves.
Sydney Festival presents a number of large-scale free outdoor events including the long-running Concerts in The Domain with, each attracting up to 80,000 people.
Since 2008 the Festival's free opening event is Festival First Night, attracting approximately 250,000 people into the city centre. With up to seven stages set-up in the city's closed streets, parks and laneways, Festival First Night features up to 500 local and international performers, many of who are part of the Festvial program. Over the past three years, performers at Festival First Night include: Brian Wilson, Grace Jones, Al Green, Sharon Jones & The Dapkings, Pink Martini, Santagold, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Cat Empire, The Manganiyar Seduction, Dan Zanes & Friends, Spanish Harlem Orchestra and many more.
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