Premier festival to hit Geraldton shores
/Festivals on the Foreshore is Geraldton’s newest premier event which will see a collaboration with the City of Greater Geraldton, Geraldton’s ever-popular Sunshine Festival and G-Fest, the only cutting edge Fringe festival in regional WA, in a new exciting waterfront location.
From October 2 through to October 11, the Geraldton Foreshore will be a sea of people, fun, colour and entertainment for the whole family!
Think awesome activities for the kids and family meets night happenings of fire twirlers and sword swallowing and the infamous De Parel Spiegeltent.
Set in a fabulous new waterfront location, the Spiegeltent offers a magical venue for intimate contemporary arts performances.
City of Greater Geraldton Mayor, Ian Carpenter, said the festival was a culmination of two of the City’s most popular events and the aim is to showcase the diversity and vibrancy of our region.
“We want to build capacity, pool our efforts, collaborate and create an event that will attract people to the Mid West region during the school holiday period,” he said.
“We plan to have something for everyone from the festival parade, children’s activities and workshops, contemporary arts performance, garden tours, art exhibition, water activities, music, astronomy, art markets, circus acts, a wide selection of food and drink and heaps more.
“We encourage everyone to invite their friends and family down to the event whether they are locals or from out of town.”
The ten-day event will be split into ‘sunshine’ activities and ‘moonlight’ activities to fit in with both the previous targets of the Sunshine Festival and G-Fest.
Sunshine activities will have a specified and increased focus on children and family activities while the moonlight activities will still be attractive to families but will also include some edgy adult-only activities.
Just one of the huge drawcards for the event will be the De Parel Spiegeltent. Purchased by Lotterywest as an asset for the entire State, this Belgian 'mirror tent' was built in Europe during the Art Deco era, and is beautifully decked out with velvet and brass booths, parquet floors, stained glass windows and thousands of reflecting mirrored surfaces. It dazzles and delights. Truly sensational.
Renowned entertainer and singer Mojo Juju will be one of the headline acts for the event, and award-winning Aboriginal songstress Emma Donovan will bring her big soul sound home to her father's country for the first time.
Colourful raucous band Junkadelic will be performing, roving and offer a masterclass for budding performance musicians. Fringeworld winning stars Natural Wings Dance Theatre will lead a fabulous circus line-up with their show 'Tandem', while Cougar Morrison, 'the love child of David Bowie and Edith Piaf' returns from rave seasons at Melbourne and Sydney Fringe.
Festival Director of G-Fest, Raina Savage, said they aimed to up the ante this year.
“Moving our fabulous Spiegeltent and Moonlight Pleasure Garden to the Foreshore to create an atmospheric playground of delight is just one of the big changes we’ve made,” she said.
“We have an amazing line-up, showcasing some of Australia's best music and most outrageous fringe arts performers; really living up to our motto of offering something to delight and offend just about everyone."
Sunshine Festival Director, Yvonne Marsden, said the team are very excited about the new waterfront location.
“This means the Sunshine Parade will start at QEII Seniors Centre, walk down Durlacher to the Foreshore, and it will be joined with the pet parade to add more colour and involvement,” she said.
“The theme this year is Sunshine – so we’re encouraging people and their pets to be dressed in bright yellows and this will take place on Sunday, 4 October at 2pm.
“Scitech will be there offering great hands on experiments and there will be many children’s workshops on offer, from cartooning to circus skills. Triple JJJ’s the Set List will also have an awesome band for youth.”
There will be music workshops, Jump and Bump, children’s workshops, the Toll Truck Pull and the Iluka Sunshine Parade plus a lot more.
A detailed program and more information will be released in the near future. Watch this space!
