Tuesday 18 June 2013

Vivid Sydney 2013 Draws Record Crowd

NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Trade & Investment Andrew Stoner today announced Vivid Sydney 2013 an unprecedented success, with preliminary estimates showing record attendance of more than 800,000 people across the 18-day event. 

Visitors flocked to the biggest Vivid Sydney ever, which included the largest Vivid Light Walk expanding into North Sydney with the lighting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Darling Harbour showcasing Australia’s first spectacular water show performances.

The Vivid Music program also expanded into new venues and Vivid Ideas featured more than 180 events with over 6,000 tickets sold. Over 40,000 tickets were sold for Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House.

Mr Stoner said, this year, Vivid Sydney achieved record results for NSW, with crowds significantly larger than last year.

“Vivid also reached audiences in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide through extensive media coverage. I am confident Vivid Sydney will have delivered this year well in excess of the estimated $10 million in economic impact,” Mr Stoner said.

“Vivid has huge appeal and has been successful in attracting visitors not only from this State and across Australia - where domestic travel packages were up 8% - but also internationally, with over 11,000 travel packages sold, including 7,200 from China.

“Bringing so many visitors into Sydney for this Festival also delivered terrific results for local retailers who all embraced Vivid. Some of the waterfront restaurants at The Rocks saw a 300% increase in diners, with reports of their capacity last seen during the Olympics. Many Darling Harbour restaurants also experienced similar growth.”

The Southern Hemisphere’s biggest annual festival of light, music and ideas is a signature event in the NSW Events Calendar, owned and managed by Destination NSW, the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency.

Destination NSW CEO Sandra Chipchase said the most successful Vivid Sydney yet was great testimony to the way the festival has been embraced by Sydneysiders and visitors alike, and the creative services industry. 

“So much enthusiasm and passion is invested in making Vivid Sydney a wonderful winter event by not only the creative practitioners involved in the Festival itself, but the hundreds of thousands of people who attended.  To be able to hold an event which attracts so many visitors, not only domestically but also from all over the world is very special, and of course is an important contributor to the goal of doubling overnight expenditure by 2020.  During Vivid Sydney we hosted 76 media and 284 international travel buyers,” Ms Chipchase said.

“There has been excellent collaboration with key partners and sponsors as well as hundreds of local businesses and communities to make Vivid Sydney a success, and something that is looked forward to every year.  It’s a hallmark event for Sydney and Australia, and is also increasing its fan base internationally.”

Vivid Sydney also saw success digitally, with almost 40,000 downloads of the free Vivid Sydney, more than 1 million people who visited the vividsydney.com website from May 1, a 200% growth in Vivid Sydney Facebook fans and a huge 2,800% growth of Vivid Ideas fans.

Vivid Sydney 2013 Highlights

Stepping into the history books with Sydney Harbour Bridge: the western façade was lit for the first time by Vivid Sydney partner Intel Australia and 32 Hundred Lighting, with North Sydney Council.  It captured the imagination of everyone and even supported the NSW Blues ahead of the first State of Origin Game when Minister for Tourism and Major Events, George Souris, turned the bridge blue with NSW State of Origin vice-captain Robbie Farah.

Extending into Darling Harbour for the first time: more than 200,000 people enjoyed the dancing water fountains and dazzling light and water shows. The show was created especially for Vivid by French artists Aquatique Show International, and staged in collaboration with Destination NSW, the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority and the Darling Harbour Alliance. The event was supported by Citibank, which hosted customers at its Pop-Up Bar.

The celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the world’s most iconic space traveller, Doctor Who: legions of costumed fans attend the one night only 3D-mapped projections on the façade of Customs House on Saturday 1 June. The projections, created by Sydney’s own The Spinifex Group, saw Doctor Who travel through space and time, pursued by some of his greatest enemies.  The Spinifex Group also created the projections on the Sydney Opera House called Play, and Collaboration #3 with renowned artist Gemma Smith at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Vivid Ideas cemented its position as a champion of Sydney and Australia’s creative industries: it showcased Sydney as the place to collaborate, foster business connections and showcase new ideas.  Headquartered on the sixth floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia with events at more than 25 venues across Sydney, Vivid Ideas grew in 2013 from 100 to 122 unique events and boasted a wealth of creative local and international talent including keynote talks by UK artist and Turner Prize nominee David Shrigley; IDEO’s chief creative officer Paul Bennett; street wear entrepreneur Johnny Cupcakes and big data artist Jonathan Harris.

More than 6,000 people attended 18 days of talks, workshops, panels and meet-ups at the Vivid Ideas Exchange with thousands more attending key creative industry events as part of Vivid Ideas including Semi-Permanent, AMPlify, Australian International Design Festival, Reportage Photography Festival, ISEA 2013, SPARC International Lighting Event, Mumbrella360, X|Media|Lab and more.

Over 40,000 tickets were sold to the 10-day music celebration Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House: audiences were attracted by a stellar line-up that included the world premiere of Empire of the Sun’s highly anticipated second album, Ice on the Dune, in addition to the eight sell-out Kraftwerk retrospective 3D shows, The Catalogue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, and the Australian debut of r’n’b soul legend Bobby Womack.

Vivid Music, a new addition to Vivid Sydney sold more than 5,400 tickets for a program that featured leading-edge electronic dance and house music at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, a two-day program of innovative and experimental music at the Seymour Centre, dance music at The Argyle and the sold out performance of datamatics 2.0 by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikdea at Carriageworks for ISEA 2013. 

2,000 people danced in front of Customs House to Move your Building: while thousands watched wild horses run across buildings and engines rev out of walls at the Audi installation Speed of Light, the Spinifex Group transformed the historic façade of the Australasian Steam Navigation Company building into a feast of light, colour and speed. Creative light sculptures and installations were selected from around the world, including artists from Germany, England, Italy, France, USA, Korea, Malaysia and New Zealand. Australian light artists featured from Sydney, Queensland, Victoria and regional NSW including Nowra, Wagga Wagga and Tuggerah.

Vivid Sydney’s Illuminating Quick Facts
·         Over 800,000 cumulative attendees
·         More than 200,000 attendees to Darling Harbour
·         Media coverage in over 200 countries
·         Over 40,000 tickets sold for Vivid LIVE
·         More than 6,000 people attended Vivid IDEAS
·         Over 5,400 tickets sold for Vivid Music
·         11,304 international packages sold
·         7,200 of these international packages from China  
·         8% increase of domestic package sales
·         284 international trade familiarisation visitors (205% increase on last year)
·         40,000 people downloaded the Vivid app
·         More than 1 million visitors to www.vividsydney.com
·         200% growth on Vivid Sydney Facebook page
·         2,800% growth on Vivid Ideas Facebook page

*package sales over the Vivid period generated via JTG

Broadcast materials can be downloaded from: https://vimeo.com/vividsydney/
Vivid Sydney stills are at Destination NSW Media Centre: http://www.vividsydney.com/media-centre/

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