The Best Ways to Get Out and Enjoy Sydney This Month

That’s right, there’s another beer festival in town. The Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular is a Melbourne player making its Sydney debut. There is, of course, a diverse range of craft beers paired with food from local Sydney restaurants (including Three Blue Ducks, Veggie Patch, Mary’s and LP Meats), but what makes this event different is the whopping 120 brews created specifically for the event by local and international brewers.

One crew makes seriously good wine. One makes seriously killer parties happen around Melbourne. The other cooks up some of the finest goods in Sydney. Now they’re joining forces for an epic wine-fuelled, pastry-flanked hootenanny inside a mysterious Sydney space. Which Sydney space? That’s a big ol’ secret.

A haunting, heartbreaking cinematic poem about a lost icon, and perhaps the finest music documentary you’ll see. Maybe you’re old enough that you can remember where you were when you heard the news of his death 21 years ago. Maybe you grew up only ever knowing of his loss and his legend. Either way, Nirvana fan or not, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is essential viewing.

You’ve run around scavenger hunting with sharks, drinking cocktails with clownfish and dancing against the glass with rays (what, you didn’t? Oh…), now it’s time to take your after hours tomfoolery to the halls of the almost famous. The Festivalists are moving their next Hijinks party from the Sydney Aquarium next door to Madame Tussauds wax museum.

Join artist Rebecca Baumann for a night of colour, light and art at the MCA’s immersive after-hours party. Baumann is the May curator for Artbar, so you’ll be wholly in her creative world for the night, inside and out. As a clue for how this may look, Baumann’s works heighten our experience of colour, transforming spaces with shimmering reflections, coloured smoke and raining glitter.

So, you’re the eager kind of bastard (not the Snow type mind you) who likes to throw spoilers in the face of your lessers? Lucky for you, the Game of Thrones edition of Goodgod Trivia is open to lovers of the books and TV series, so you’ll be able to use that smug mouth to win. Or die.

And you thought Melbourne was having all the cat cafe fun? There’s an adorable-beyond-all-reason pop-up kitten cafe coming to Paddington. In association with Maggie’s Rescue, Sydney Cat Cafe is hosting a pop-up cafe from May 14-17 at William Street Gallery. Sydneysiders can book cuddle sessions with fluffy little kittens handpicked by the Maggie’s Rescue team, with the opportunity to pledge funds towards turning the Sydney Cat Cafe concept into a permanent fixture.

Australia’s leading food rescue organisation is getting in on the pop-up trend. Opening in Pyrmont on Tuesday, May 12, harvested will serve up high-quality meals made entirely from ingredients destined for landfill. Ready to spend the next three months making you rethink your lunch, the cafe is the brainchild of Travis Harvey; a chef with more than ten years experience in restaurants around the world.

Vivid Sydney is really cranking it up this year. With a kaleidoscopic festival program of light, music and ideas this morning, Vivid’s 2015 plans will have you squealing over social and locking in dates. Now staged in four new precincts (Chatswood, Central Park, Pyrmont and expansion in Sydney University), as well as the usual harbourside suspects, Vivid is back for another year of technicolour merriment and reignited appreciation of your city.

Mary’s of Newtown has been thinking about kebabs for a while. With mastery of the burger under its belt, the team has been wondering how it might fare in the realm of the mighty shish. Now the speculation has been turned into action; Mary’s first ever kebab stand has opened — inside The Cliff Dive. That’s right, you can now complement your Pacific Island-inspired cocktails and late night grooves with roast lamb and smoked chicken rolls.