What Did You Think of White Night? - Melbourne

try2bhelpful on 21/02/2016 - 12:33

Firstly I would like to thank the Council, the people who organised and manned the events and all the artists involved for holding White Night. I do appreciate the work that has gone into it

I went to White Night in Melbourne overnight and I just wondered what people thought. I thought it was pretty good but it was not as good as last year. Got up at 2:00 and walked in from Fitzroy.

The Good:
- The display at the Exhibition Buildings was terrific
- The circus stage at the side of the Exhibition buildings was also great. The woman juggling the table with her feet was amazing and the live music was really good.
- The display at the State library was a great sound and vision scape.
- The City Baths - this was impressive visually but I would've been a tad annoyed if I had to stand in a queue because there was not a lot of variation. We just walked in about 6:30 am.
- The NGV display.
- There were a lot of stages playing live music and many of them were very good.
- The large variety in Food stalls. Although by the time we were wandering around there were a lot of "sold out" items.
- The all night transport.

The more average.
- By not having the display in Flinders St there was not a lot in the way of "large" display pieces and White Night lost its heart; I found the projections on the Federation Square buildings unexciting.
- There wasn't anything particularly spectacular in Alexander Gardens, Birrarung Marr or along the Yarra. Last year we have a fire dragon, some interesting sound scape installations and the Bollywood float.

I raised this forum not to bash the organisers but because I would hate to see White Night lose momentum and then be lost due to a drop in attendance.

I would like to see:
- Flinders St, and the Town Hall, reinstated as display venues. (Even if it is later in the evening so people spread out a bit more)
- More substantial displays in the Parks and along the Yarra.
- Perhaps the council can work on a sponsorship deal to offset the cost. (As long as the ads are too prominent).
- An app gives you visual previews of the displays and uses GPS to tell you what is near your current location. That way decisions can be made on what to see and what to pass up on.

We walked 11 Km last night and had a good time. The issue is last year we did similar and had a really great time.

What did people think?

Poll Options

  • 5
    Great
  • 1
    Good
  • 4
    Average
  • 10
    Meh
  • 5
    Disappointing
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Comments

  • kcyw on 21/02/2016 - 13:37

    I have never been, but looks good from photos.
    https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/melbournewhitenight/

  • neil on 21/02/2016 - 14:23
    +1

    Spot on with the post.

    • Carlton Gardens/Royal Exhibition Building/Museum was the best of the show with perhaps the exception of the Internet Cat videos at ACMI. Having the museum open late at night is definitely something that should be repeated during various times of year.
    • Definitely needs more signage for where the exhibitions were instead of where food trucks were. There were certainly no hungry people last night.

    It's never going to be as good as the 1st year. That was a bit of an unknown of what was going to happen. Lighting up and having a concert at Flinders St was fantastic in the first couple of years but the crowd crush was unsafe and not fun to be caught up in so its a bit of tricky situation.

    • try2bhelpful on 21/02/2016 - 14:49

      Damn, missed the cat videos at ACMI. If you are into the cat videos go along to the NGV Ai Wei Wei / Andy Warhol kids room; it looks like it is usually free. There is a video where Ai Wei Wei talks about the cats in his life, with accompanying video of the cats, it was really good.

  • melgibson19 on 21/02/2016 - 16:00

    Just moved to Sydney, so please, be grateful for what melbs offers. Sydney is dead. Not sure what young ppl actually do here at night apart from eat and drink coffees.

    • djones145 on 21/02/2016 - 18:07

      Go to the casino

  • try2bhelpful on 21/02/2016 - 16:34
    +1

    Sydney is dead because a minority bunch of moronic men get tanked up and start trying to fight everyone. "Lock-outs" are not the answer but very strict policing aroung venues probably is. If the idiots step out of line then the punishment is swift and heavy. Maybe the clubs losing the patronage can kick in money to hire enough security to deal with the issues they are contributing to.

    • melgibson19 on 21/02/2016 - 17:56
      -3

      "the idiots", "the terrorists", "the boatpeople", "the carbon tax", blah blah. Where do they breed ppl who believe this crap. "lockdown" a city because of several fist fights.

      • try2bhelpful on 21/02/2016 - 18:05
        +1

        Yeah, assaults are only down 40%. Who cares.

        http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/lockout-laws-assaults-down-40-per-…

        http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-16/crime-statistics-and-l…

        So what if a few people got killed; which is what prompted this.

        However, don't let the facts get in the way of your prejudices. My mother bred someone with a brain and an empathy for other people.

        BTW, if you didn't notice I am against the lockout.

        • melgibson19 on 22/02/2016 - 08:22

          Assaults down because people (both statistical and actual) have vacated city. Didn't you recently cal for sonar, aerial strikes and the wholesale extinction of the shark species because there was a statistical spike in attacks. Not sure what empathy has to do with social control…..unless your catholic

          .

        • try2bhelpful on 22/02/2016 - 10:40

          @melgibson19: Empathy with the victims, which apparently you lack. As I have iterated on several occassions I disagree with the lockout. Apparently reading and comprehension are not part of your talents, as shown by you attributing my support to things I clearly have not commented on. Congratulations you win, because yours is obviously a pointless answer.

  • [Deactivated] on 21/02/2016 - 17:54

    Missed it, damn!

    Last year is seemed to be too spread out and hardly anyone out, but it was a record attendance.
    Year before, too many people and too small an area.
    Year before that (first year in Melbourne) was perfect!

  • JoyVee on 22/02/2016 - 00:25

    I went the first year, scenic but very squashed. Friends went last year and thought of overcrowding put them off repeating the experience. Went from 9.30 till 2 a.m. this morning. Amazed at demographic of crowds, Families with toddlers to people in their 70's and all ages in between. Lively and interesting. Enjoyed the skilful and amusing live acts, wasnt game to try out flying trapeze! Rhythm and plenty of music in Swanson and Burke St Mall.Lots of people enjoying free night visit to museum. Easy to move around, plenty of security and cleaners. Everyone was out to have a good time. Great atmosphere.

  • jimbobaus on 22/02/2016 - 09:45
    -1

    And the hypocritical Melbourne city council will now remind us all to turn our lights off for Earth Hour soon.
    Why bother supporting Earth Hour if you are going to light up the whole city in what is essentially a waste of resources and money.

    • neil on 22/02/2016 - 09:57

      Ha, Earth Hour isn't there for the Melbourne City Council to save on their energy bills. That's like saying their push to limiting cars into the CBD is opposite their support of F1. They may as well turn off all the lights and run no events if that's the case.

      White Night was actually one of the only things (+ Baillieu boxes) Ted Baillieu successfully debuted in his very short time as Vic Premier before he was knifed.

      • try2bhelpful on 22/02/2016 - 10:50
        +1

        I think that Earth Hour is a token effort as well; we should be concentrating on how we use our resources all through the year. Bang for buck "White Night" delivers a lot of enjoyment to a lot of people so it is not my main concern. What we need to look at are things like buildings with their lights on 24 hours a day, or the air con/heating running when nobody is in residence, overpackaged goods, that piece of rubbish we are about to purchase, (even though we don't need it), non recyclable plastics, shipping crap around the globe. We need to increasing the use of passive heating/cooling, reuse, recycling, public transport, efficient cars, better designed houses, better designed cars, generating energy with renewable sources, more efficient use of water. There is a lot we could be doing rather than sitting in the dark for an hour.

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