LAST weekend’s Joondalup Festival has been called the most successful in the event’s 19-year history.
More than 55,000 people visited the Joondalup city centre from Friday to Sunday in what was the first time it was staged over three days.
This year’s theme was ‘perform, create, imagine’. Audiences were encouraged to dive deep into their imaginations and inhabit their inner artist.
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The Friday night preview drew large crowds to Central Park for a first look at the interactive artwork CLOUD and the world premiere of the large-scale puppet Leor.
The festival continued throughout the weekend with acrobats, jugglers, vaudeville acts, comedians and circus performers entertaining audiences across the festival site.
Walking works of art The Cloudmen roamed the streets and stopped for countless selfies, while international performers Avanti Spurting Man and ManoAmano Circo showed why they are so popular around the world.
Festival-goers were guided through the site by a series of illuminated clusters, which also provided a backdrop for the Cluster to Cluster Urban Couture runway show.
The event came to a close on Sunday evening with the Joondalup Community Choral’s final performance of Fiesta!, beats from Japanese drumming group Taiko On, and a light and fire show by Zap Circus, which led into the finale fireworks.
“Audiences were truly blown away by this year’s program line-up, particularly the likes of CLOUD and Leor, which brought a truly global feel to this year’s festival,” Joondalup Mayor Troy Pickard said.
“The City has worked hard to position the Joondalup Festival as a multi-arts cultural event, attracting local, national and international performers, and giving festival-goers Australian-first and world-first cultural experiences.
“Once again, people from all over the Perth metropolitan area have converged upon Joondalup to experience what this dynamic festival has to offer.
“Like our City itself, the Joondalup Festival has grown and matured and I cannot wait to see what is in store for our 20th Anniversary in 2018.”
Lanterns a highlight
THE Twilight Lantern Parade was also the biggest in festival history with more than 1800 students and community members parading their lanterns through the city centre on Saturday evening.
Award winners included Lake Joondalup Baptist College, Woodvale Secondary College and the Intuitive Souls Kids Art Class, which is a small weekly class of 12 students from Padbury Primary School.
Intuitive teacher Sue Arkley said the class was “excited and honoured to be recognised for all the hard work that went into our creations”.
“We loved the concept of this year’s cloud theme and our lanterns, evolved into different animals and characters full of colour reflecting the rainbow,” she said.