Working on Australia’s largest music festival event could be daunting, but I chose instead to focus on my marvellous good fortune.
Rolling on from our good work in Brisbane, we headed to Centennial Parklands in Sydney to bump in for the next Listen Out show.
The main difference between the set ups for Brisbane and Sydney was pretty much all and everything. Going from RNA Showgrounds to Centennial Park was a completely different playing field – everything gets erected especially, and pulled down afterwards, so it’s not as challenging to decorate a plain marquee space, but still a challenge to bring a sense of serene luxury, thus my introduction of an extremely oversized golden chandelier. So fashion. The aptly named So Bar (booze free, get it?) took vision and sheer determination too, but we got there in the end, with muse Wes Anderson as a guiding force.
The Artist Lounge
We dished out Palm Springs with a dash of Australiana. Because we were in lush parklands, I ramped up the colour with bougainvillea plants and mass amounts of tropical plants, Australian natives, a ridiculous amount of flowers, and of course, a giant iguana and leopard statue.
So Bar
It took some pretty hefty detective work to find these trunks and suitcases and bring my jungle vision to life. The trunks belonged to Greek immigrants who came to Australia on a ship many years ago. When they arrived to the site, everyone thought I was mad. ‘What’s with the rusty trunks?’ they asked. It wasn’t until we applied a life size bengal tiger and fresh fruit to the equation that very many people understood what I was trying to do. The suitcases have the most amazing vintage stickers on them. It took every fibre of my being not to leave Sydney with them.
The Garb Wire 