The annual magnet for photographers, Vivid Sydney, will be held between Friday 24 May to Saturday 15 June 2019 featuring an expanded outdoor gallery of light displays.


Austral Flora Ballet, a tribute to Australia’s native plants and flowers by Los Angeles-based Chinese American artist-filmmaker Andrew Thomas Huang, will be projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

The largest festival of light, music and ideas in the Southern Hemisphere, Vivid Sydney  2018 attracted 2.25 million domestic and international visitors, an increase of 37 per cent over the previous year. This year’s program includes a new Vivid School event for High School students in years 9-12 that aims to assist students to learn more about the creative processes involved in imagining, designing and delivering light-based artworks for this huge global event. Students and their teachers will be able to meet the professionals behind Vivid Sydney’s iconic building projections and light walk installations, and to hear from artists, designers and technicians about their career paths and how they harnessed opportunities to build their skills for future projects and employment.

This year’s Light Walk sees more than 50 light works presented in the largest outdoor gallery of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, stretching for more than three kilometres. Visitors can also stroll through the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney for close encounters with illuminated artworks that reflect and refract both light and nature. Viewers are also encouraged to look beyond the night sky through KA3323, a retro-futuristic satellite dish overgrown with alien plant matter in the Botanic Garden, while at I Hear You (But Do You Hear Me?), an array of LED light poles generates a space between two people with their voices starting a conversation of light and sound. Other precincts Taronga Zoo, Darling Harbour, Chatswood, Barangaroo and Luna Park will also light up in 2019.

Associated with the light displays, Vivid Ideas brings to Sydney 23 days and nights of talks, hands-on workshops and industry- shaping forums delving into the meaning of love, loneliness and belonging in our fast-paced, ever-connected lives. Vivid Sydney spotlights the city’s live music culture by both bringing in influential overseas acts and placing a firm focus on local talent. Click here for full details of this year’s program.