Here’s what’s happening across Australia in July
With July just starting, there is plenty to do no matter where you are in the country this month.
From festivals of light and snow to public art installations and activities to take part in, here’s what’s happening across Australia this July.
Illuminate Adelaide
As one of the country’s newest festivals, Illuminate Adelaide is a city-wide celebration packed with art, lights, sounds, and creativity.
Lights, sounds, and immersive experiences are all on the cards at this year’s Illuminate Adelaide festival. You can even get up close to towering glowing creatures! Images: @illuminateadelaide (Instagram)
Highlights of this year’s program include:
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Base Camp, a pop-attraction in Victoria Square, which boasts an ice-skating rink open day and night and Electric Playground, consisting of three immersive installations: Neon Village, SEEP, and ORBIT.
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Light Creatures, where giant glowing animals take over Adelaide Zoo along with some of the zoo’s furry and feathery residents.
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Light Cycles, which sees the Adelaide Botanic Gardens transformed into an after-dark transcendent experience where technology and nature meet.
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Digital Garden takes over Mount Gambier’s cultural centre once again with a captivating program of installations, projections and interactive lighting created by local and international artists.
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Lacunae, a free art installation where a live-feed shares silhouettes and music simultaneously from different locations, meaning people across South Australia can communicate and dance with each other.
For a full program and information about tickets, head here.
Darwin Fringe Festival
The annual festival celebrating Darwin’s arts scene is returning once again this year, with ten days of theatre, cabaret and burlesque, music, art, circus and dance planned.
Highlights include a free networking night for artists, roller disco in Civic Park (though it is BYO skates), a zine fair, and a slew of top-notch comedians - including a showcase of Darwin’s teen comics.
The Darwin Fringe Festival lineup includes comedian Di Barkas’ show, ‘Oops’, and the roving performances at Fringes of Mindil. Images: Di Barkas (Facebook) / Darwin Fringe Festival
The festival will also include a variety of night-time events, including raving performances and fire shows at Fringes of Mindil, as well as art exhibits and even installations where visitors' stories and dreams are turned into artworks.
Darwin Fringe Festival runs from July 8-17, with more information available here.
Mackay Festival of Arts
If you’re looking to immerse yourself in art of all kinds, Mackay’s annual Festival of Arts could be perfect.
Celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, the festival program includes fan favourites such as the Wisely Wine & Food Day, the Friends of the MECC Jazz Brunch, and the vibrant displays and installations at Daly Bay Illuminate.
The Daly Bay Illuminate (left) and Barbaroi (right) are just two of the highlights of this year’s program. Images: @mackay_festivals (Instagram)
New additions to the lineup cover everything from art to trivia, with highlights including:
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Wonder Rooms - an installation of shipping containers converted into selfie museums and filled with works created by Queensland-based artists, with five rooms to discover across the Mackay region.
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Barbaroi is a performance where contemporary circus meets physical theatre, featuring acrobatics, aerials and circus acts.
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Read the Room, a quiz show at the Ambassador Hotel that sees guests answer curly trivia questions through their phones, with panel guests then needing to guess which way the Room will swing.
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Haunt Cabaret - Mackay’s permanent Dinner Theatre hosts dinners with a show every Friday and Saturday night, with its current show, ‘FANTASY’, coinciding with the festival.
To see the full program for the Mackay Festival of Arts, head here.
Anything But Square: Under Surveillance (Melbourne)
With a theme of surveillance from our devices, homes and streets, this intriguing festival will be taking over Melbourne’s Federation Square until early August, complete with a towering, eight-metre-high creepy sculpture of a head covered in giant eyes.
Free film screenings and a creepy, everwatching sculpture are two features of the Anything But Square 2022 program. Images: @fed.square (Instagram)
Other highlights include Dance Dystopia, a series of Friday night DJ sessions with free loaded hot chocolates and eye-themed sweets; Surveillance Film Festival with free outdoor screenings of movies catering to the whole family; Secret Workshops, with a eye-theed program including jewellery making, paint and sip classes, and embroidery.
For more information about the Anything But Square: Under Surveillance program, head here.
The Snow Festival Sydney
150 tonnes of real snow is making its way to North Sydney’s Greenwood Hotel for Snow Festival 2022.
The festival also welcomes the largest ice rink the area has ever seen, with free ice skating all day and night (and coaches to show you the ropes), as well as figure skating performances and live music rink-side.
Snow, music, drinks and skates abound at North Sydney’s Snow Festival. Image: @greenwoodhotel (Instagram)
On top of the wintery goodness, the festival will also include special sponsor parties, gondolas, skate-up Fireball whiskey bars, plenty of activities for the kids, free-flowing Champagne, and inflatable polar bears.
To find out more or book a table, head here.
Bicheno Beams Tasmania
The family-friendly light festival is returning once again to Bicheno this winter, with not one, but two different light shows on display on alternating nights.
Due to the festival’s proximity to Bicheno’s adorable penguins, the festival has adopted a silent disco approach, encouraging visitors to bring along a device to stream the soundtrack to and a pair of headphones, as well as woollies, a torch and a thermos of hot chocolate to stay warm as the night turns chilly.
Two light shows feature at this year’s Bicheno Beams festival. Images: @bichenobeams (Instagram)
If you can’t make it down, you can still enjoy the lights from the comfort of home. Bicheno Beams will be streaming live every night from 6pm.
You can find out more about Bicheno Beams here.
Images: Instagram