FOR more than three decades, Sydney Festival - with its free concerts and street dances, and the sexy, sassy ambience of the Famous Spiegeltent - has electrified the city in summer. Now, that electricity will be also charging the city's demographic heart, Parramatta, with a 10-day program of events tailor-made for the city's western suburbs.
This is Parramatta's cultural coming of age, says festival director Lindy Hume, who has devised a ''very summer and shamelessly friendly'' program that gives Parramatta its own Spiegeltent in Prince Alfred Park, its own opening night party and a closing night concert.
''We have had a presence out there for 10 years and some of what we have done has been hugely successful and other things have not hit the mark and that is because we have started with a Sydney CBD core and worked outwards,'' says Hume.
''The city council wants Parramatta to be alive and a place that the Sydney Festival comes to and there is an expectation they deserve more and good on them.''
It's sweet music to the ears of Parramatta lord mayor, Lorraine Wearne, who most recently hit the headlines when she said Western Sydney, not Barangaroo, should be the site for a new lyric theatre or any future Sydney arts and cultural precinct.
''What we are getting is an exclusive program of shows of the same standard as those offered in central Sydney rather than something just tacked on to the main festival,'' Cr Wearne said.
Parramatta Council put $500,000 into the festival, which was matched by the state government. The lord mayor expects a good economic pay-off for her city and hopes it will help build its nascent events calendar that includes the south east Asian arts festival, Parramasala, big New Year's Eve and Australia Day festivities and a winter ice festival called Winterlight.
''When you bring this many people into the city for the first time they do other things as well,'' she said.
Parramatta's opening night party from 4pm on January 14 will include performers, musicians and mobile sound systems entertaining audiences in the parks, on the streets, all over the CBD, and along the city's bustling riverfront.
The party starts in the afternoon with Holly Throsby and her band performing a set of children's songs, while from his double-decker bus parked in Church Street, British DJ Norman Jay will play seven hours of dance tunes.
The last night of Sydney Festival Parramatta is a free outdoor concert at the Old King's School site featuring Rockhampton folk-pop duo Busby Marou, Australian country singer Kasey Chambers, and the sultry and distinctive Dan Sultan with his seven-piece band.
Sydney Festival Parramatta runs from January 13 to January 22. For program details, go to sydneyfestival.org.au/info.
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