Vivid Festival smashes attendance records despite winter chill

This year’s Vivid Festival has smashed all attendance records, drawing a record 3.28 million visitors to Sydney CBD despite the winter chill.

The preliminary figures were the best in 13 years, with attendances 30 per cent up on the 2.58 million who had come last year, driven mostly by seven harbourside drone shows.

The Written in the Stars drone show drew an estimated 500,000 people to quieter times of the Vivid Festival.Credit: Destination NSW

These were watched by an estimated half a million people and boosted festival attendance on the traditionally quieter mid-week and Sunday nights.

The surprise closing night display featured 1000 drones. Vivid had put on just one sponsored drone show the previous year.

Audience growth for Vivid over one year was “an increase comparable to the population of the Gold Coast,” Tourism minister John Graham said.

“Over the past three weeks the city has felt vibrant and electric,” he said. “The program this year went from strength to strength. The new Vivid Food program was a huge success. The music program featured some iconic artists, including an important tribute to Archie Roach. The drone show captivated audiences young and old.”

Hotels in the CBD reported increased occupancy during the festival, with occupancy rates
up 12 per cent overall compared to last year.

Tourism Accommodation Australia CEO Michael Johnson said it was remarkable to see hotels at times reaching 90 per cent occupancy during winter.

Crowd numbers were calculated on a combination of ticket sales information and crowd counting. Vivid Sydney employs counters each night of the festival between 6pm and 11pm and uses other key data sets across 1800 zones and spaces.

Figures included the sold-out In Conversation event with The White Lotus creator Mike White and star Jennifer Coolidge, attended by 7366 people. More than 1200 people attended Vivid’s A Bend in the River, A Tribute to Archie Roach at Town Hall.

Also included are visitor numbers to Lightscape at the Royal Botanic Gardens, and Dark Spectrum at the Wynyard Tunnels, events contracted with Sony Music. But ticket sales for each of these events have not been publicly released.

Lightscape, which runs for another month until July 16, has come under criticism for charging up to $128 for a family of four at peak times and for effectively commercialising what had previously been organised as a free light walk.

This year Vivid expanded into new dining and food events and paid tribute to artist John Olsen who died before seeing his works, projected for 23 nights on the exterior of the Sydney Opera House.

The growth in Vivid’s popularity came as a new 17-day music, film and performance festival was on Tuesday unveiled for Sydney with Solange to headline.

Volume, the city’s newest cultural event, is scheduled for September and regarded as Sydney’s answer to Tasmania’s cutting-edge midwinter festival, Dark Mofo.

The festival will be presented by the Art Gallery of NSW, which is venturing into new territory beyond its traditional focus on the visual arts.

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