Sydney Open 2012

Sydney's largest festival of sanctioned snooping.
Zacha Rosen
Published on October 08, 2012

Overview

The Historic Houses Trust's service-entrance festival Sydney Open 2012 invites Sydneysiders to have a look behind the scenes at private spaces and buildings around Sydney for a Friday to Sunday three day weekend of upcoming sanctioned nosiness.

The festival throws in its first free event this year, indulging in a Festival First Night-style Sydney Open Night on Friday night, turning the key on five buildings at no charge. Parliament House, the Barracks, On Seven at DJs, St James Church and the Chief Secretary's Building (backdrop to the Chaser's accidental APEC over-achieving) will be the first venues to be thrown open to the looming crowd, with the rest of the festival's 50 plus venues to follow over the weekend.

Saturday sees a series of smaller-grouped Focus Tours. These single-serving jaunts take detours to more narrow, private or subterranean parts of Sydney, including the iconic Tank Stream, old favourite the Central Station Ghost Tunnels, the cavity around of the QVB dome, Catalanista Rosly Street Commerical and the colour-coded, sparse Strelein Warehouse.
Sunday opens the CBD to the wandering multitude, as the bulk of the properties open their doors at the price of a city pass, including the newly-circular 1 Bligh Street, Hong Kong House, the Tetsuyas-fronting Old Judge's House, Government House, the Great Synagogue and a repurposed Woolloomooloo sewer. On the move, you can orient yourself with a mobile site or a new, handy-looking iPhone guide.
Like the Biennale, Underbelly Arts and the better seasons of True Blood, this city-wide show pops up only once every two years. Tickets are on sale already, and they regularly sell in advance. (Some tours are already sold out.) So, if the Saturday or Sunday legs of this look behind the city-wide curtain grabs your interest, get booking.

Sydney Open is part of the Sydney Architecture Festival.

Information

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When

Fri, Nov 2, 2012 - Sun, Nov 4, 2012

Fri, Nov 2 - Sun, Nov 4, 2012

Where
Sydney CBDSydney
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Price
$32.15-42.35 / Friday night free
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