I distinctly remember the first time I heard the pitch for Vivid Sydney. I was working as the Content Director at ABC Sydney when the station was approached with a proposal: would we come on board as an official media partner?
Sitting in that meeting, listening to the grand vision, I remember thinking it sounded incredibly ambitious. The core concept required a massive leap of faith. The organisers genuinely believed they could convince hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders to voluntarily leave their warm living rooms in the dead of winter to wander around outside in the dark. To make the gamble even riskier, May and June are notoriously wet months in Sydney. It felt like a beautiful, luminous gamble against the elements.
Vivid became a juggernaut. Yet, in the years since that first pitch, the weather has remained a major personal gatekeeper for me. It dictates my entire approach to the festival. Last week, true to Sydney’s winter reputation, it was absolutely miserable and wet. But when Monday night this week rolled around, the skies finally cleared, and the pavement dried up.
Weather isn’t the only variable I have to calculate these days. The sheer size of the crowds has become another major factor. There have been years where the festival felt overwhelmingly busy—a shoulder-to-shoulder sea of people that made casual viewing nearly impossible. Monday night offered a tactical window. I figured a weekday evening right after a big pocket of rain would keep the massive crowds at bay.
Throw another major life adjustment into the mix—my right lower leg amputation a few years ago—and the equation changes completely. Navigating major public events now comes with a layer of apprehension, primarily driven by the real risk of losing my balance or falling over.
But on Monday night, the stars aligned. The conditions were right, and I had a mobility scooter to get around.
Navigating crowded public spaces on a mobility scooter or a wheelchair can be incredibly challenging, to say the least. The crowds can still be a bit of an issue, as people wander around taking selfies or staring into space. Sometimes they just don’t see you, and you often find yourself having people running into you simply because they’re not paying attention. Added to that, it’s dark, so I actually ended up turning on the light on my scooter to help make myself more visible.
Even so, on this particular evening, it was surprisingly okay. While there were certainly those crowded, distracted moments, it was nowhere near as intensely congested as my previous excursions.
Part of that felt down to the design of the festival this year. The event is much more spread out across multiple, distinct venues rather than being tightly packed into a singular, dense pathway. Because of that geographic dispersion, the immediate “wow” factor of a concentrated sensory overload wasn’t quite there for me this year. The impact felt a bit more diluted.
That said, the night was still thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve always been most drawn to the installations that purposefully combine light and music, creating a cohesive, immersive atmosphere. Being able to pause, watch the lights dance in sync with a soundtrack, and take a photo in a reflective installation without being completely swept away by a wave of pedestrians made the experience feel uniquely personal.
There are actually a few other venues across the city hosting festival events this year that I might still attend, but I’ll just have to see how it goes over the coming weeks. Everything depends on balancing the conditions on the night.
Vivid has transformed completely since that initial pitch landed on my desk at the ABC all those years ago. And while my own way of moving through the city has transformed too, there is still something pretty special about seeing Sydney lit up in the middle of winter—especially when you manage to catch it on the perfect, dry Monday night.