Vivid Sydney

Vivid Festival 

Vivid Sydney is an annual event of light, music and ideas, featuring industry forums, a
free exhibition of outdoor lighting, sculptures and installation, contemporary music and
the illumination of Sydney’s architecture. The City of Sydney partnered with Events NSW
to host the first festival in 2009. The festival continues to expand and activate new areas
of the city every year.
Vivid Sydney 2013 featured a 2.65 kilometre Light Walk from the Opera House to Darling
Harbour via The Rocks and Walsh Bay, which included over 60 interactive light
installations and major video-mapped projections on iconic buildings such as the Sydney
Opera House and Customs House.
The 2013 Light Walk event attracted over 800,000 cumulative visits across the 18 days
that it was held, with numerous people attending more than once. This represented a 45
per cent increase in attendees over the previous year.
Over 40,000 tickets were sold for Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House and more than
6,000 people attended the Vivid Ideas program at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The
event also received media coverage in over 200 countries. The event platform also
includes numerous industry conferences and events.
Visitors to the event predominantly come from metropolitan Sydney and regional NSW.
Recent events have also seen large and growing numbers of visitors from interstate and
overseas who have either visited or extended their stay in Sydney, specifically for Vivid.
Vivid’s economic contribution to Sydney is significant and growing.
In 2014, Vivid Sydney will take place over 18 days from 23 May to 9 June 2014. It is
proposed that this year’s festival extend further to new areas and create an additional
precinct in the CBD featuring new and refreshed content.
Destination NSW has approached the City seeking support for multi-year funding of Vivid
Sydney. The City has considered this request in light of the potential economic benefit
for local business and the City’s role in managing the public domain. To improve the
visitor experience of our city, support could be provided across cleansing, disability
access, information booths, guest services, security, signage and wayfinding and event
maps, with the details of in-kind support to be negotiated in each funding year.
Funding is subject to Destination NSW indicating how it plans to increase the footprint of
the event and increase opportunities for business in the City’s Local Government Area,
in particular food and beverage businesses. In return for City support of the event,
Destination NSW will seek feedback on the visitor experience and research how to
increase opportunities for business.
Funding for subsequent years will be dependent on provision to the City, in a timely way,
of a proposal for an event plan for expansion of the footprint of Vivid, supported by
research data from the previous year’s event.