Dark Mofo organisers hope to crack 500,000 visitors

ALMOST 50,000 tickets have been sold for Dark Mofo events, already surpassing the total ticket sales from last year.

Red crosses mark the way along the Hobart waterfront for Dark Mofo. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

ALMOST 50,000 tickets have been sold for Dark Mofo events, with the bulk of purchases made by patrons from interstate and overseas.

While the festival’s prelude began last week, the first official week starts on Thursday night around greater Hobart and runs until June 24.

As of Wednesday night, 47,800 tickets had been sold, already surpassing the total ticket sales of 45,200 last year.

Dark Mofo marketing director Nicole Smith said so far this year about 27,800 tickets had been bought by people from interstate or overseas — about 60 per cent of total sales.

GALLERY: PAINT THE TOWN RED

At this time in 2017, about 16,000 tickets had been sold to interstate and international patrons.

Ms Smith said this was about a 73 per cent increase on out-of-state sales from last year, with organisers confident of cracking the 500,000 total visitor mark across paid and free events. Last year, Dark Mofo attracted 444,056 visitors.

“The numbers are strong and there’s an increase in visitors to the festival this year so we are on track to reach that 500,000 people mark,” she said.

Ms Smith said discounted fees on the Spirit of Tasmania as part of Dark Sail had gone quickly, with people keen to partake in the Dark Road — a curated drive to Hobart.

Dark Mofo will start with a bang at 9pm on Thursday when performance artist Mike Parr is buried in a container under the surface of Macquarie St, outside the Town Hall.

Underneath The Bitumen The Artist is Parr’s response to the transportation of convicts in the first half of the 19th century, and the subsequent violence against the state’s Aboriginal population.

Mike Parr will be buried for three days under Macquarie St in this container.

Macquarie St between Elizabeth and Argyle streets will be closed to traffic from 7.30pm-10.30pm while Parr is buried and again from 7.30pm to midnight on Sunday when he comes out.

People can watch from the Town Hall steps or outside the old Mercury building, but rain is expected over the weekend.

Big crowds are tipped for the Winter Feast at Princes Wharf 1 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then again next Thursday to Sunday.

The culture hub of Dark Park at Macquarie Point also starts on Friday.

Murray and Liverpool streets will be transformed into a multi-venue, late-night party precinct called Night Mass on Friday and Saturday nights.

Artist and filmmaker James Newitt, at his Dark Mofo installation, Delay, which is inspired by a true story. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

Artist delivers cautionary tale on escape plan

EVER wanted to just pack up and get away from it all? Like, a really long way away?

Then check out James Newitt’s Dark Mofo installation, Delay — but it might make you careful what you wish for.

Delay is inspired by the true story of famous “hermit girl” Jane Cooper, who arrived in Hobart from Melbourne in 1971, aged 17.

TASWEEKEND: GOING IT ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS

Cooper paid some local fishermen to take her to the remote ‘Big Witch’ island off Tasmania’s southern coast — where she intended to live in solitude.

She lived there until 1972 before moving to Seven Mile Beach and later, New South Wales.

Based around Newitt’s film I Go Further Under, the exhibition uses video projection, sculptural objects, text-based correspondence and photographs to create a dense, somewhat claustrophobic environment in which to explore notions of escape, withdrawal, isolation, paranoia and surveillance.

Newitt, who splits his time between Hobart and Portugal and won the 2010 City of Hobart Art Prize, is the head of Time Based Media at the University of Tasmania’s School of Creative Arts.

Contemporary Art Tasmania says Delay “will explore the fundamental yet conflicted human preoccupation with escape. It will unpack experiences of detachment, isolation, insanity and severance, and in the process ask us to follow the hesitations and fragility of leaving here and going elsewhere”.

Delay continues at CAT in Tasma St until July 15. Entry is free.