Brisbane Festival

I’ve lived in Brisbane since 2008. It was the only year I managed to go and see  Riverfire.  The last couple of years I managed to miss out on it because I had to work.

It took me until this year to find out there is a whole festival attached to Riverfire Day. I reckon it has something to do with a friend of mine who is working for Brisbane Festival. Without her telling me about all the shows and events happening during the three week period I wouldn’t have known.

After I had a little bit of research on Brisbane Festival I learned that it merged with the annually held ten day long Riverfestival in 2009. Before that Brisbane Festival was a biennial held event from 1998-2008.

However, this little history lesson still doesn’t explain why I have been so unaware of things happening in the city I live in.

I must say I am amazed what the event managers put together.  My investigation into the festival’s history found that there have been heaps of cultural events during the festival period but this year has been a first with the Santos city of lights.

The light show was just spectacular and I did manage to see it twice. If work and uni commitments would have permitted I’d have been down to South Bank many more times to watch it. The atmosphere was just breathtaking due to the mixture of people, lights and music.

Another highlight of my festival experience was the light tunnel, which was very colourful and picked up on your movements and then changed the colour/shape of things projected. Ok, I know a very bad description of what was actually happening with all the LED lights in place. Let’s just leave it at a worth mentioning festival experience.

I finished my Brisbane Festival encounter with a visit of the Powerhouse to watch Romeo and Juliet by a Bell Shakespeare Production.  I’ve seen this play before and have read it as well. A couple of people were concerned that it wouldn’t live up to expectations as it was supposed to only be a 90 minute play and everybody knows that’s quite short for Shakespeare plays.  We’ve been proven wrong it was mind-blowing. Great actors who managed to capture the audience. Especially ‘Juliet’ grabbed my attention because she displayed the emotions so well. Don’t judge me – I’m not trying to write a review of the play it’s just how I feel about it without having any background knowledge concerning  acting and being on stage.

Overall I had a great Brisbane Festival experience and now that I know of its existence I can’t wait for next year’s Festival.  It will be hard to top this one with its light show and everything else like the Cheap Fakes playing at the Santos lounge. However I wouldn’t be sad to see the Laser light show again in next year’s festival program.