Arts, crafts, food, wine, music and fashion on show in Melbourne

Fitzroy wall art

After a scrumptious breakfast at the Capri Restaurant, located in the Sebel Docklands Atrium, it was time to board the coach with the other ATE15 participants staying at the Sebel for the mornings Melbourne Insights Event. This was held at the Rose Street Artist Market in Melbourne's inner city suburb of Fitzroy.

Tourism Victoria hosted this trend forecasting forum for ATE Media, presenting the newest trends and future predictions for Melbourne’s lifestyle sectors, including social enterprise, street art, arts and craft, food and wine, and fashion.

Rone, Street Artist

The MC for the morning was Adam Del Mastro. After coffee we were welcomed by Zoe Shurgold, Destination Communications, Tourism Victoria. Melbourne’s leading experts in their fields then shared their personal insights. These included:

- Sarah Weston -  craft, 

- Bec McHenry - Transient Melbourne - the creative use of empty spaces in Melbourne's retail and hospitality areas

- Nicole Tattersall - Street Art - how a thriving underground scene has bubbled to the surface

- Daniel Flynn - (Thankyou Water) Social Enterprise - how a new generation of consciousness is emerging ion Melbourne 

- Nathan Toleman - Daytime Dining - how the Melbourne cafe scene is making waves

Leigh Harry, C.E.O. of Tourism Victoria then spoke briefly summing up the previous speakers.

Morning tea

There were several breaks between the speakers in which we were able to have morning tea, wander around the craft stalls, taste urban wines and spirits, see a street art demonstration, and enjoy a coffee tasting.

Lunch was made available from three food trucks which pulled up at the Rose Street Artist Market. The Taco Truck, Van Go and White Guy Cooks Thai offered a variety of freshly cooked delights and various drinks. 

After lunch a variety of walking tours were made available. It was a hard choice which one to take, as they all appealed to me. I could have chosen the Street Art Tour, Craft, Design and Retail Tour, Cafe Culture, or Hidden Secrets Tour. However, I chose the Behind the Curtain Tour.

Dressing room

We followed the band down the street and boarded a special tram which took us to the starting point at Federation Square in the city. Our group then walked to the Southbank Theatre, the home of Melbourne Theatre Company. The Theatre opened in 2009 and contains two performance spaces: the 559 seat Sumner, and the 150 seat Lawler. It was good to go back stage and see all the equipment that is usually not seen. We all also looked into the dressing rooms, which were full of the actors costumes for the productions now being staged.

It was then a short walk to the Arts Centre Melbourne for a guided tour of its three theatres and backstage areas. It was interesting to see the largest scissor lift in any theatre in Australia. A semi-trailer could be drive onto this at street level, then be lowered to stage level. This makes easy work of unloading sets and props onto the stages. 

Hamer Theatre

It was then onto Hamer Hall, the largest theatre in Arts Centre. The stage was set up for an orchestras performance that evening. Refreshments were provided in the Fatto Bar and Cantino before our group dispersed.

I made the short walk along the Yarra River to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to briefly visit the South Pacific Travel Exchange in one of the exhibition halls. Here various South Pacific islands, hotels, resorts and airlines were promoting their tourism offerings. I then caught a taxi  with the provided charge card to my Sebel Docklands hotel so that I could change for the evening event.

The coach picked us up at 6.30pm and took us to the ATE Media Welcome Drinks Function in a new eating venue, Higher Ground, in Spencer Street lit and decorated for the occasion. Sponsored by Tourism Victoria, this function brought together the themes from the Melbourne Insights morning and afternoon program. It was an opportunity to network with other media and exhibitors.

ATE Media Welcome Function

Various wines from different wine regions in Victoria were served, along with food especially prepared for the night. The locally sourced, fresh food brought around to us included:

- Hirimasa kingfish sashimi, fennel, lobster powder and local seaweed salt
- Farro, dandelion, nettle, beets, and kalke risotto
- Mushroom, celery and leek soup with black truffle
- Cold smoked Flinders Island Wallaby, black truffle, frozen duck egg
- Scorched burrata, basil, olive oil, black olive powder on charcoal wafer
- King Island Crayfish roll, charcoals brioche,purslane and agar yuzu
- Flinders Island lamb cutlet (long rib, drenched) dandelion and mountain pepper
- Mandarin sorbet, mandarin powder and crumble.

The entertainment consisted of (rather loud) background music, a singer, fashion parade of Victorian designers, and art. The evening ended when a taxi took me back to the Sebel Docklands. 

Fashion parade

The day provided a good insight into all the little components that help create a wonderful environment for visitors to enjoy their Melbourne visit - food, craft, wine fashion etc. It was a good opportunity to meet some of the other 125 media people from 35 countries present as guests of ATE15. During the day I was fortunate to meet people from Brazil, U.K. Germany, France, China, U.S.A., Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore - all keen on promoting Australia as a tourist destination. I will have an another opportunity to meet more of them today when the ATE Media Marketplace takes place.