Category: ‘Flagship’ Sydney Spectaculars

Probably the biggest call I’ve made since I declared in 2019 that I believe Sydney NYE is no longer the best annual fireworks display globally.

Vivid Sydney is now more creative than Sydney NYE.

This is no accident. Sydney NYE, since the loss of the Bridge Effect in 2015, has been less creative each year. Initially, the loss of the Bridge Effect meant the overall night’s narrative was dropped, where they tended to rely on annual artworks to promote a theme. The artworks were undoubtedly spectacular but contributed very little to the event night except as a constant presence on the pylon projections.

Projections, in fact, was what the event needed to capitalise on to bring back the overall night’s narrative. The pylons were well used, since 2000, for projections, but it was Vivid Sydney that showed the potential of projections through their iconic usage on the Sydney Opera House since 2009. Since 2011, the Lighting Of The Sails, as they are formally called, have had a theme attached to them.

In 2013, the International Fleet Review Spectacular, showed the storytelling power of projections when they used the Sydney Opera House, Harbour Bridge pylons and the Australian National Maritime Museum roof to tell the story of the Royal Australian Navy since they first sailed through Sydney Heads in 1913, 100 years prior. This was the 1st combined fireworks & projections show on Sydney Harbour and it had rave reviews. The future of Sydney NYE was secure and this was before the loss of the Bridge Effect became known just over a year later.

So what happened? Vivid Sydney saw the storytelling potential and immediately applied it. Their next Lighting Of The Sails, done by 59 Productions, told the story of the Sydney Opera House since it was proposed in the 1950’s to the present.

This was short-lived however. In 2015, Vivid went back to non-narrative but themed projections for the Lighting Of The Sails. It was called Living Mural and essentially was just the sails acting as a painting canvas. When the loss of the NYE Bridge Effect was revealed in 2015, it was expected the Sydney Opera House would play a starring role for the 1st time telling a story through projections during the fireworks displays, just like during the Fleet Review.

Instead. it was revealed the Sydney Harbour Bridge itself would be “the Bridge Effect” through a light show and pylon projections. For the pylon projections, we expected it would be similar to the Fleet Review Spectacular. For the light show, there was also a precedent. In 2003, due to time delays in the construction of what would become NYE2004’s Bridge Effect, Fanfare, a light show was done on the Sydney Harbour Bridge:

It was a brilliant light show but what the light show was in 2015 was in fact just a row of searchlights along the roadway and the pylon projections – just a stationary image of that year’s graphics with a Twitter hashtag. It was very poor for Sydney NYE standards and was probably the worst edition ever in terms of creativity (especially since the Millennium) with an unoriginal theme, no storytelling projections, an unsignificant light show & no ‘construction’ of the Harbour Bridge, which would have been the night’s narrative if it was a real “Bridge Effect”. The sudden loss of the Bridge Effect may have been a factor in this poor creativity but NYE2003 had the same issue but only temporary and had only 2 months to solve the creative problem. They still managed to make a very creative edition for its time.

It turned out the light show would become a permanent feature. The following edition, which also acted as a ‘relaunch’ for the event with a Welcome theme, the light show made the outline of the Bridge as it should have initially but there was still no night-long narrative and storytelling pylon projections. Pylon projections finally became part of the fireworks displays on NYE2018 – 5 years after the Fleet Review Spectacular and they tell a story during a segment called Calling Country, an Indigenous segment, which due to the COVID-19 pandemic & since NYE2021 has replaced the 9pm Family Fireworks. Calling Country is now the only part of the current event that is as creative as it’s Bridge Effect years.

Whilst this transition to include pylon projections took 5 years, another transition occurred. Sydney NYE no longer used it’s incredible soft power to project a message to the world (think of a Bridge Effect, you get an associated message), which is ironic with Clover Moore still as Lord Mayor (been in office since 2004). The sole aim was now to just make the fireworks display as big as possible (This aim has always existed since the early 1990’s), make the lights/projections as flashy and colourful as possible. This is the equivalent of a media franchise flogged to creative death just to make a profit. Sydney NYE, while technically a free event, is now a commercial product. It’s no surprise that commercialisation has become an issue for Sydney’s major events in recent years (even an election issue for NYE!).

Vivid Sydney has done the opposite.

I’m focusing just on the Light program initially, which draws about 94% of the attendance. Whilst starting as an exhibition of how light can be used smartly or environmentally friendly in 2009 & a celebration of Governor Macquarie in 2010, it became a light art festival with no central theme under the direction of Ignatius Jones (ironically, the person who introduced themes & narratives to Sydney NYE in the iconic Millennium edition). Each installation, always done by a different artist, was creatively different with no unifying theme.

It seemed Ignatius was just there to find something special each year for Destination NSW (the event’s organisers) to draw in more crowds (the Harbour Bridge light show, the Darling Harbour water show, the synchronised lights on boats, the addition of the Royal Botanic Gardens walk & the Taronga Zoo lantern walks) as Ignatius could not be seen using his full creative potential as seen during his Sydney NYE editions (1996-2001) like adding unifying themes.

Vivid‘s aim, was to make the lights as colourful & flashy as possible to draw in crowds but with an artist allowed to add a creative touch to their installation so it can technically be called a ‘light art’ festival. Destination NSW is a tourism agency so its sole aim is to draw visitors but their strategy has worked too well – Vivid has become & still is, as a result, very crowd crush risky. As another result, people cannot take the time to appreciate the art done in each installation nor watch a full projection/light/water show, which run a maximum of 15 minutes.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ignatius Jones left Vivid Sydney. He was replaced by Gill Minervini, who was in charge of the City Of Sydney’s non-NYE events in the past, and she has made her mark on the event immediately. Essentially, turning the event into the soft power that Sydney NYE used to hold. First, she introduced event-wide themes. The cancelled 2021 edition was to have a theme of ‘We See Ya, Sydney!‘. The theme clearly reflected the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions but also the tourism agency control of the event. It was trying to get the attention of future overseas visitors. More visitors is the last thing Vivid Sydney needs – something that 2023 has done the complete opposite of – and Sydney’s Spectaculars sell themselves. If this blog was running in 2009, we would have told you Vivid is an event to watch out for – that it would become Sydney Opera House’s big event (like the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s big event is NYE).

In 2022, Vivid finally returned after a 2-year absence, though the risk of COVID-19 was still very real in Sydney. Gill decided to celebrate Sydney itself, focusing on the returning domestic audiences, with a theme of Soul Of The City. Vivid had a record attendance. In 2023, she settled on a theme of Naturally – a reflection on nature. This shows that she is using Vivid as a soft power to showcase a message on the importance of nature particularly in the current context of artificial global warming & climate change. From the Lighting Of The Sails‘ floral artwork tribute of John Olson & the Indigenous celebration of country at the Museum Of Contemporary Art to Darling Harbour’s water show’s LGBTIQA’s pride statement & Central Railway Station’s reminder of nature’s sacrifice in the name of technology and advancement. For the 1st time, Vivid is sending a united message to the world & not just trying to draw tourists through spectacle alone.

At this point, she also announced an expansion of the event to include a new Food pillar – the biggest expansion in a decade. The success of this new pillar was such that it became immediately more popular than Vivid Music & Ideas, drawing a minimum 6% of the overall event’s attendance. The new pillar will only help local dining establishments to promote their business by being more formally connected to Vivid (It is known Vivid has reversed a decline in business for dining establishments during winter so the Vivid increase will only just become festival-official as a result of this new pillar rather than just informally associated).

It was also announced a regular drone show, themed in 2023 as Written In The Stars, would be held for the 1st time at Vivid. It wasn’t the 1st annual drone show on Sydney Harbour – that was at Elevate Sydney 5 months earlier. In fact, Vivid had Sydney Harbour’s 1st regular drone show, Drone 100, in 2016 but it took until 2022 to return as a 1-night promotion for streaming service, Paramount+. Drone shows have also appeared for 1-night-only appearances for events such as The Everest Barrier Draw, WorldPride 2023: Sydney & the re-opening of the Art Gallery Of New South Wales but none of the above drone shows had the brand power of Vivid Sydney.

Written In The Stars drew in crowds like a moth to a light & heavily contributed to extraordinarily large crowds on its show nights. This was partly due to 2 reasons. First, drone shows, as demonstrated around the world, have reached a level of visual clarity and technical coordination that it now astounds audiences with its images. Back in 2016, Drone 100 was the world-leading drone show. The images were ‘high-definition’ for the time but as you can see in the video above, they are rather elementary-looking in hindsight. It also didn’t draw crowds (being ticketed for the soundtrack didn’t help) as the novelty of drone shows had not yet been proven and in the public’s eyes, the show was just a couple of tech-geeks & aeronauts showing what they can do with a few drones & a computer. It wasn’t presented as entertainment but as a creatively-done technical presentation.

Secondly, as a result of the 1st reason, it provided a clear item for the public to see. All the other installations, due to Vivid‘s crowds, have become background decorations for social media photos but the drone show is something you knew you had to watch in full and most importantly, arrive at a certain time and leave at a certain time otherwise, blink & you miss it! This is what most contributed to the extra crowds. For an event that ran 5 hours a night, Written In The Stars only ran for 10 of those 300 minutes or 0.03% of the time. Crowds slowly built up in anticipation of the 9:10pm start & as soon as it finished, due to the crowds, left at 9:20pm, resulting in unusually large crowds at Circular Quay railway station. The crowds forgot that leaving to avoid the crowds brought the crowd with them. Once again, the cost of Vivid‘s success on show.

For a show that only ran on 6 of the 23 Vivid nights, it was no surprise that they added a 7th final surprise show on closing night. Next year, it would not be a surprise if a drone show featured every night & twice a night (probably at 8pm & 10pm) on the peak nights of Fridays, weekends & the King’s Birthday holiday. This would spread out the crowds throughout the whole festival & on those peak nights, avoid the rush to Circular Quay railway station after the 1st show.

Written In The Stars, with music from Gustav Holst’s The Planets mixed together by Pee Wee Ferris & drones by Australian Traffic Network, showcased a series of images of outer space, beginning with a whale diving out of Sydney Harbour up towards the Milky Way, using over 1000 drones. It should be noted that despite popular belief, this drone show broke no records. The southern hemisphere recordwent to Uluru’s Wintjiri Wiru show, held since 10 May 2023 – 13 days before Vivid started- while the world record is currently around 5000 drones – a record held by China since early October 2022. Written In The Stars had a creative theme but no story. That’s what Vivid needs to do next year – add a story. All in all, Written In The Stars has heralded the arrival of drone shows over Sydney Harbour.

Since 2016, this has long been speculated to happen eventually. We’ve always believed drone shows would become the modern equivalent of the Bridge Effect on NYE – telling a story throughout the fireworks or in-between 9pm & Midnight before revealing a final iconic image at the story’s conclusion after the Midnight Fireworks finale – just like the Bridge Effect – or using lights on drones in a unique way around the Harbour. However, the City of Sydney has been of the attitude ‘We need a lot of drones if we are to do a drone show’. In short, 6000 drones.

Other excuses were possible rain, wind & battery life. It rarely rains on NYE so you just have to be unlucky. It is similar with wind, though for drones the wind tolerance is a lot lower than fireworks but again, you just have to be unlucky. Battery life is the only completely reasonable excuse but only partially, as there is, obviously, enough battery life to produce a single iconic image during the Midnight Fireworks finale.

It should be noted these excuses for no drones were provided by the City Of Sydney when a Councillor requested an alternative to the main creative element of fireworks – that is fireworks or drones but not both. However, it is reasonable to think that the lack of drones in Sydney NYE since 2014, notably apart for broadcast purposes, leads one to conclude these are also the reasons for not introducing drones at all.

The City of Sydney are being overly cautious – being more reactive than proactive. To be proactive, is to be creative. Have you ever heard of someone ‘being creative’ because they are using someone else’s ideas? Creatively is also about using even the smallest amount of a creative element to its maximum potential. The City of Sydney took the approach ‘All-In or Not at All!’ regarding drones. This all is also emblematic of their attitude detailed above that apparently the people only want more and more fireworks & more colourful/flashy lights/projections – not a story told through fireworks/lights/projections. We were of the opposite belief – even a small number of drones could add a lot to Sydney NYE.

Sydney NYE began as single location fireworks display on NYE1976. They didn’t go – ‘I want 6 barges, the Bridge, the Opera House & other buildings – all at once!’ & they did not need to – NYE will come around again next year. It’s not a 1 in 15-year event like a Fleet Review – when the rarity of the event demands something big, spectacular & unique. Projections also began in NYE1998 as simple laser projections on the pylons & water. They did not go – ‘ I want a complete artwork, mapped to the entire shape of all 4 pylons!’ – not least because the technology did not exist yet. They just added something new – being proactive, mainly for sponsorship purposes – and let it grow over time.

You may have heard of our NYE ‘revolutions’ – basic, Bridge, theme, projection mapping. This has happened every 15 years on average usually coinciding with a Naval Fleet Review. We weren’t expecting the next one until 2028 & if there was one, it would be the introduction of drone shows but in a complete surprise, the revolution arrived early and it wasn’t during a Fleet Review, it wasn’t during Sydney NYE but during VIVID!

VIVID SYDNEY HAS BROUGHT IN THE 6TH REVOLUTION!

On opening night at 6pm when Vivid Light begins, informally known as Lights On!, at the conclusion of the relatively new First Light event, an Indigenous welcoming event at Campbells Cove for Vivid curated by Rhoda Roberts (who creatively directed Sydney NYE2008-2010) that concludes with the formal countdown to Vivid by dignitaries, they introduced the 1st ever combined fireworks-drone show on Sydney Harbour!

The formal countdown by dignitaries got delayed but, thanks to time codes, that didn’t stop the drones! Drones appeared in a vertical circle above Jeffery Street Wharf. Red strobing stationary flares then appeared on the Sydney Opera House, a barge (stationary not strobing), 2 skyscrapers, the Overseas Passenger Terminal and at Campbells Cove. Inside the drone circle, a 10-second countdown began before the words ‘Lights ON!’ appeared & the lights and projections turned on around Sydney as fireworks erupted from the flare-appearing locations! During these fireworks, the words ‘Welcome’, ‘Bujari Gamarruwa’ and the Vivid Sydney logo appeared in drones. The Sydney Opera House had fireworks for 1 minute while the rest went a total of 3 minutes. The 1st cycle of lights & projections finished 12 minutes later (but these are not synchronised to the fireworks and drones & hence, technically, not a part of the fireworks/drone show)

This Lights ON! fireworks display was first held last year as a surprise to celebrate Vivid‘s return after the COVID-19 pandemic but after re-appearing this year, in history making form, will likely see it become just as popular as the drone shows. The best vantage point is at the First Light event at Campbells Cove but to go there you need to get at least an hour prior for the best spots. The next best vantage point is the Overseas Passenger Terminal with a similar arrival time requirement. However, if you do not want the best spot, there is plenty of room to get the next best spot by 6pm… for now!

The usage of a combined fireworks-drone show, the 1st ever on Sydney Harbour, shows Vivid, led by Gill Minervini, is daring to be creative. Something that Sydney NYE has not done, except in their Calling Country segment, for 8 years. The combined fireworks-drone show didn’t need to be as big as Written In The Stars – it was just a 10-second countdown, 2 simple welcoming messages & the event’s logo. The 2023 Lights On! Moment has been shown it can be done & on a small scale, just like we believed or in this case, 1000 drones. Not like the 6000 drones the City of Sydney demanded.

Vivid Sydney is now more creative than Sydney NYE.

The City of Sydney have been caught off guard with a huge hole in creativity left to be filled. When the Bridge Effect disappeared in 2015, their appointed Sydney NYE creative team, Imagination, went to what they did best – marketing – with those earlier-mentioned artworks distracting from the lack of event creativity. In 2018, the City Of Sydney decided to follow Imagination‘s lead by making it all about a ‘visual identity’, appointing Garbett Design to design the visual identity. Garbett Design produced a great visual identity but for the City Of Sydney, for the event, that’s the limit of their vision and creativity & that’s where we are today: An event designed around an identity, brand, logo…. A marketing product and overall, it is repetitive, boring & uninteresting. Again, thankfully we have the Calling Country segment – where Australia’s Indigenous people do use their creativity and not worry about marketing.

On marketing, there was a lot of concerns of commercialisation of Vivid Sydney this year, mainly around activations of the Royal Botanic Gardens and less so of the former Wynyard tram tunnels. We, at Sydney Spectaculars, are not concerned about these developments, unlike of Sydney NYE in recent years, for 3 reasons:

1. These locations are closed to the public at night – the Wynyard tram tunnels for public safety (which is closed during daytime too) & garden protection for the Royal Botanic Gardens.
2. These activations were held well into mid-July – a month after Vivid Sydney finished – and therefore, aren’t officially part of the event. They just happened to start & be promoted at the same time as Vivid Sydney, using its brand power to drive ticket sales.
3. These 2 activations made up only a small portion of Vivid if you include it as part of that event. It did not prevent you from seeing the official Vivid lights which, if you include those 2 paid-ticketed activations into Vivid, made up about 85% of the lights.

If you had to pay to go into The Domain (which includes Mrs Macquaries Point) or any open-at-all-times public place for Vivid, then it is time to be outraged.

But the overall message of this article is that Vivid‘s future is bright – thanks to the creativity directed by Gill Minervini – and that the City Of Sydney really need to reflect on their creative efforts for Sydney NYE (aside from Calling Country) as they’ve lost the title of Sydney’s most creative event in our opinion. To lose one title may be a misfortune, but to lose two looks like carelessness…