2010 Surry Hills Festival

Saturday, 10 April 2010
a picnic in the parks

Information for Residents and Neighbours

The Surry Hills Festival is a vital fundraiser for the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre (SHNC). The Centre receives funding from all three tiers of government for its various activities, but these are insufficient to cover the costs of providing services to the needy of Surry Hills.

To supplement the government support and balance the books, the SHNC relies on the annual Surry Hills Festival as well as the monthly Markets in Shannon Reserve.

To highlight the importance of the Festival in ensuring the SHNC's viability, the surplus from the Festival in the past five years has been greater than the total surplus earned by the Centre through all its activities. That is, without the Festival income, the SHNC would have run at a loss in each of these years.

At Prince Alfred Park, the Festival attracts huge crowds from Surry Hills and the broader community who come along to enjoy the facilities and entertainment on eight stages, as well browse through the 250 or so market stalls. We see the Festival as a community event, and its success is due to the generous partnership and contribution of local Surry Hills businesses, corporate sponsors, artists and entertainers, and of course our local community and residents.

The Surry Hills Festival moved to Prince Alfred Park in 2006. The move was a great success, with the park providing an amazing space for Festival goers to experience the sights and sounds of the day. The City of Sydney began a major upgrade of Prince Alfred Park in 2009 and works are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010. As a consequence the Surry Hills Festival will need to find a new home for the 2010 event.

The venues for the 2010 Surry Hills Festival will be the gorgeous Ward Park and Shannon Reserve in Surry Hills, as well as the new Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre and other satellite venues across the suburb.

The 2010 festival will be community focused with a intimate picnic feel. The festival will be maintaining its no glass safety policy asking festival goers not to bring any glass bottles or containers onto the sites. This way we will reduce potential incidents and make sure that the all festival goers have a fun and positive experience at the 2010 Surry Hills Festival.

Organisation of the Festival is a major undertaking, and is effectively a 12 month process. We employ two professional part time Festival Directors 6 months prior to the festival, but everyone else involved is a volunteer. A Festival planning committee meets monthly throughout the year, and on the day of the event about 100 volunteers are involved, not to mention the 100 or so performers all of who donate their time and talents to the Festival free of charge. Community members are invited to participate in the planning of Festivals and to volunteer their time in the weeks leading up to the Festival and on the day. Your suggestions on how we can improve the Festival are always welcome. Click here to get more information on volunteering.

Entry to the various festival sites will be by gold coin donation, so please give generously to the festival gold coin collectors at the park and venue entrances.

Photographs by Amy Mergard