The Best Free Things to See and Do at Sydney Festival 2016

Now this is a playground for the ages. January’s Sydney Festival will see the brand new Cutaway at Barangaroo Reserve house one of the largest community events in festival’s 40 years. Olivier Grossetête’s The Ephemeral City invites Sydneysiders to use boxes and tape to create a temporary city — one which will be excitedly demolished come Australia Day. This unprecedented project also includes a free Flying Fox zipline, a projection of Shaun Gladwell’s Skateboarders vs Minimalism and a full audio-visual experience at Gallery Hour. The best part? The entire Barangaroo program is absolutely free.

One of the most iconic performances of Sydney Festival, this show gives the public free access to what would, in usual circumstance, be an expensive night out. Enjoy the sounds of Sydney Symphony Orchestra and celebrate the 40th anniversary of Sydney Festival with a ‘best of’ from the performances the orchestra has played throughout the years. For the ruby anniversary of the festival, all attendees are asked to dress in red — so pack a picnic, don your ruby slippers and enjoy a glamorous night with your loved ones. All for free. Sydney Festival will also be running Opera in The Domain for free on January 23.

Another incredibly cool freebie, this whimsical fairground is just as much for adults as it is for kids. Think a Ferris wheel fitted out with toilet seats and a bicycle-powered carousel, all of which are made with recycled objects. The vision for the installation was created by a collective of artisans led by Jordà Ferré and Oscar de Paz, and is just one piece of the free summer nights at Parramatta’s Alfred Square.

A psychedelic, space-rock show like no other, The Flaming Lips have been putting on incredible live acts for three decades. Their music is meant for an outdoor festival stage, and for Sydney Festival 2016, they’ll be playing out in the open at The Domain — for free. No catch. For the fanatics out there who want to get up close and personal, there is also $50 VIP access passes on sale now, which allows you to jump the queues and sit front-of-stage. Fifty bucks for premium viewing of one of the best live acts around? Now that’s a VIP event we can get on board with.

What’s the difference between a minimalist sculpture and a skate ramp? Or are they one and the same thing? Internationally adored video artist Shaun Gladwell and freestyle skating champion Rodney Mullen teamed up to engage in some “creative misuse” and find out.

While Gladwell filmed and the music of Phillip Glass played, Mullen got busy skating all over some of the world’s most respected American minimal sculptures. We’re talking works by the likes of Donald Judd, Carl Andre and Dan Flavin. You can rest assured that no damage was done, but the video does encourage you to reconsider the boundaries between art and sport, between beauty and function, and, naturally, between sculpture and skating. Blurred lines aren’t always a bad thing (well, as long as Robin Thicke isn’t handling them, that is).

We all know Hyde Park is much better when conceived as a kind of Midsummer Night’s Dream: a magical, atmospheric hub bounded by strings of lights. For another year, Sydney Festival is setting up the beloved Festival Village in Hyde Park, stretching along College Street past the Archibald Fountain and housing the Spiegeltent, Magic Mirror Spiegeltent and all your festival food and drink needs. The Village’s free activities, music and nommy nomz will take you from day to night with the laidback, buzzy vibe that’s unique to Sydney in January.

Food vendors have your voracious stomach’s needs completely covered from 12pm (check out last year’s custom-built Messina creations). But this is not just about slobbering gluttony, you barbarian. It’s also about playtime. City of Sydney’s Lawn Library offers books and workshops by day, and you can enjoy the creative surrounds of SydFest’s 2016 artists-in-residence Province (aka Laura Pike and Anne-Louise Dadak).

Give every one of your senses a break when you step into the Pleasure Garden. Making its world premiere at Vaucluse House, this enchanting project infuses the surrounding gardens with music and sounds. Everywhere you wander, you’ll hear a new melody or discover a chance to ‘play’ nature, inviting you take a rest from your daily scurrying and listen as well as look. You’re welcome to take on the experience as you see fit — be that walking, sitting, dozing or picnicking.

Pleasure Garden is inspired by Jacob van Eyck, a 17th century musician, composer, improviser and nobleman. The music includes excerpts from his repertoire, alongside new compositions from Genevieve Lacey and Jan Bang, in collaboration with Jim Atkins, Robin Fox, Pete Brundle and Sera Davies.

Watch this breathtaking piece of filmmaking and you’ll never take a marble column for granted again. Armed with his camera, Albanian video artist Adrian Paci set out to follow a slab of marble — starting with its extraction from the earth, through its journey over vast oceans, to its chiselling, by the hands of an extraordinarily dedicated group of Chinese labourers.

Touching on themes of dislocation, exploitation and globalisation (without sledgehammering them), Paci employs an epic, transcendent approach, creating a work that’s beautiful and devastating at the same time. The Column was a smash hit at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. Before that, it exhibited in Paris, as part of Paci’s Lives in Transit exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, and in Milan at PAC.

Attend the Sydney Festival without leaving the comfort of your couch. Dutch composer Michel van der Aa and Aussie singer-songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke have collaborated to bring you a dreamy, digital choose-your-own-adventure. In fact, you can pop over here and download it right away.

The Book of Sand is not just any swashbuckling pirate’s tale. It’s an artwork, combining beautiful visuals with sound. Visitors choose between three different worlds (or ‘film layers’): a stone gallery, a cellar or a desolate desert, where they meet Miller-Heidke singing while exploring her surroundings.

Deftly defying conventions, the music moves from one genre to another, shifting between abstract electronica, alt-pop and a cappella, which is where Nederlands Kamerkoor, an extraordinary independent Dutch choir, comes in.

Have you ever felt the need to catapult through a cardboard city on a zipline? You’re in luck, you niche adventurer.

Sydney’s Festival‘s highly anticipated installation at Barangaroo, Olivier Grossetête’s The Ephemeral City, is already one of the festival’s big drawcards this year. Taking over the Cutaway, this large-scale work will see Sydneysiders building an entire pop-up city in the cavernous space — one of the largest collaborative, hands-on events the festival’s ever attempted. But before the city is destroyed on Australia Day, you can hurtle through the temporary city on a free flying fox.

There’ll be a first-in-first-flight free ticketing system in the venue — so get there bloody early. Find your way to the Cutaway, register for your flight and help build the city while you wait for one heck of a ride.