A Roadmap to White Night

It’s true, Melbourne has a lot of festivals. Big festivals, piccolo festivals, and “why in hell is there a festival for that?” festivals. Well, we like to celebrate, alright? Just like Kimmy K, we'd go to the opening of an envelope if there was a chance of our face making it into the society pages.

White Night Melbourne is another festival, but with a nocturnal twist — it all takes place over 12 hours, from 7pm until 7am (it's after my bedtime, too, but you know, YOLO). Since its establishment in Europe in the early '90s, White Night has expanded all over the world, with Melbourne the latest city to join the line-up.

The program is teeming with activities, spread out across eight themed areas, mostly within the CBD grid but extending to Birrarung Marr and the Melbourne Museum. Expect projection art, performance, film, lights, and live music — a bombardment of colour, noise, and merriment that will display Melbourne's thriving cultural scene, or a concentrated, hyperactive, crack-fuelled version of it, anyway.

Before you break out in a stress rash because it's all a little 'whelming, regain control in this crazy world of chaos by reading on to find out how to make the most of Melbourne's funnest night watch.

Music

Flinders Street Station will be transformed into a Theatre of Dreams, which to the weekday commuter might seem like a bit of a stretch, but they needn't be so cynical. The usual scowling youth who take up residence on the steps under the clocks will be replaced by a line-up of local acts including Eagle and the Worm, Hiatus Kaiyote, The Cat Empire, and World's End Press.

Eargasms shall abound from LaTrobe street to St Kilda road, with cabaret, opera, classical, electronic, jazz, experimental, and world music scattered throughout the city. The facade of the Forum Theatre will be made over, with 3D projection and electronic music program Particle Picnic running all night long.

Literature

Down below Flinders Street in Campbell Arcade, zine workshop and distributor Sticky Institute will host a 12-hour zine-making marathon. If you want to soak up some more of the atmosphere, bang out that zine quick smart and head over to Fed Square, where there's an all-night dance party under a canopy of hundreds of mirror balls.

There's also an Emerging Writer's Festival workshop at The Wheeler Centre, where young writers will endeavour to keep the crowd entertained with overnight readings of their work and there will always be time for one more bedtime story.

Film

ACMI will be showcasing a weird and wonderful bunch of films, including 101 Zombie Kills, Warhol's screen tests, and Mother Courage, a film installation that explores Australia's Indigenous communities. There'll also be films showing in the Fed Square Loading Bay Cinema.

Art & Performance

You'll be able to peruse all the current exhibitions at the NGV, Arts Centre, and State Library as the night wears on, with performances of the Melbourne Theatre Company's Constellations and The Other Place taking place at the civilised time of 8:30pm. Plenty of time afterwards to be as uncivilised as you wish.

Surprise!

While the usual culprits will be treating us to some impressive entertainment, it's the spaces in between where the city will surprise. An immersive storytelling game, The Whispering Society, will be heard in the alleyways and corridors off Flinders Street, there'll be fountains and lasers erupting from the Yarra, and a dawn procession will ask folks to sing along to a specifically written White Night Melbourne anthem (maybe trying to push the moment a little too hard but we'll see how it pans out?)

It's pretty darn exciting to see an event of this calibre being held in Melbourne — the only problem being that there's no way you'll be able to see it all in one night. We can't come close to writing about all of it without developing repetitive motion syndrome, so head to the White Night Melbourne website for more information, including a full program of events.

All images via whitenight.com.au