The festival will run for exactly 24 hours across a weekend in May featuring art, live music, yoga, neon tennis, an outdoor cinema and more.
Next month Melbourne’s southwest destination Werribee will be transformed into a wonderland of art, live music and more with a brand-new 24-hour festival.
Dubbed ‘24’, this free, all-ages arts festival, presented by Wyndham City, will see Chirnside Park (home of the VFL Werribee Tigers) in central Werribee become a hub of never-ending entertainment, where every hour brings something new to enjoy. Playing on the idea of time itself, 24 will feature a number of durational live art works, created in real time along with a time inspired cinema program.
The action kicks off at 6pm, on Saturday 6 May and will run through to 6pm, Sunday 7 May, with the opportunity to stay up through the night, or drop in across the twenty-four hours.
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around the region here.
From dusk the park will be buzzing with a fantastic lineup of live music and dance on the Riverside Stage, a live action painting project turning an old car into a dazzling neon artwork, and tunes from the alluring UKI – a giant, robotic insect on wheels with its own DJ deck (previously seen at Burning Man and at White Night Melbourne).
Celebrating music and dance from around the world, reflective of the diverse multicultural community that makes up Melbourne’s west, the Riverside Stage will feature Ethiopian roots, reggae and dancehall singer-songwriter Nhatty Man, Master of the kora, Amadou Suso & Friends Band, Wurundjeri female dance group Djirri Djirri, and hip hop artist NOMAD, among others. A real treat will be a performance from supergroup, Halo Vocal Ensemble (Melbourne Music Week, Melbourne International Jazz Festival) reinterpreting classics from RnB royalty and many more.
As dusk fades to dark, the park will take on a magical glow with a garden maze of 400 illuminated flowers and soundscape crafted entirely from recycled plastics known as Imaginary Botanicals along with Chromatica, a giant kaleidoscope that transforms the classic childhood toy into a large-scale interactive experience, both from The Indirect Object.
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There will also be two large scale artworks from the Slow Art Collection, including a huge, woven work called Archi-Loom, where you can let your creativity run wild, adding your own piece of art over the duration of the event, while dancer, Janette Hoe, will create an ethereal performance, appearing at various times throughout the event.
Festival-goers can boogie into the night at the Silent Disco (running 11pm to 7am), help create a large woven labyrinth in Archi-Loom, bust out the fluro for some neon tennis or be entranced by roving performances from the other worldly Sacred Serfs and Illuminated Angels.
Greet the dawn with a Raga of Indian classical music and yoga for all ages. Then, once the coffee kicks in, go for glory with an epic paper plane competition before settling in to watch further performances on the main stage.
24 will also feature a 24 Hour Outdoor Cinema featuring back-to-back screenings of cult classics, each playing on the theme of time (think Back to the Future and Groundhog Day), as well as a larger than life board game, The Curious Game by Born in a Taxi, where you become the chess piece – no one knows what the rules are and everyone’s a winner.
You’ll find a range of dining options in Werribee City Centre, just a short walk from Chirnside Park, or enjoy a bite to eat from the onsite food trucks, with picnics also welcome.
Free public car parking is located close by, with the main entrance to the event site from Watton Street at the Intersection of Greaves Street South.
24 takes place at Chirnside Park, 220 Watton Street, Werribee from 6pm, Saturday 6 May – 6pm, Sunday 7 May 2023. This is a free Wyndham City event – no bookings required.
