It seemed a brave decision for Vivid Sydney to start charging for entry to the Sydney Royal Botanic Garden in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
Talkback radio callers were irate, the Daily Mail called it “obscene”, Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, called it “mean”, and the new Labor government blamed the previous Coalition government and promised to look into it. It does cost enough to be a non-starter for a lot of people: a family ticket will set you back $128 (two adults, two children), an adult ticket is $40 and children (three to 12 years) are $28.
Entry is timed in 15-minute increments but you are free to stay for as long as it is open. The question that I, along with my family, was sent to answer – via complimentary tickets – was: is it any good? And, crucially, is it worth it?
The light festival component of Vivid – perhaps most famous for its light and drone shows over Sydney Harbour and the Opera House – has become a regular event in the calendar for our children, breaking up the long winter months between Easter and Halloween. And Sydneysiders as a whole have embraced the event – in a large part because most of it is free; more than 1.2 million visitors have poured off trains, ferries, buses and the light rail so far this year.
The botanic garden walk has been part of Vivid’s annual free offering since 2016, when it began as a way to celebrate the garden’s bicentenary. Back then there were about six light displays, including the Cathedral of Light: a 60-metre-long arch made up of thousands of fairy lights. It was hugely popular from the start.
This year, though, it has been massively scaled up and ticketed, as a new event called Lightscape. The Lightscape mob have previously carpeted gardens around the world with light installations and soundscapes, including the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London. In Sydney there is now a 2.1km trail with 16 light displays, each with a different botanical theme and accompanying music.
In one part, which we will call Game of Thrones, metal dragons breathe fire over a spiral of torches. This was a hit with the children. In fact, fire in general was a highlight for them; halfway along the trail were fire pits where they could toast mega marshmallows. But the marshmallows were $3.50 each, posing a serious challenge to my naturally frugal disposition. There would be good money to be made dealing some on the side if you snuck in a pack of Pascall, I thought.
It’s impressive for a public event in Sydney to even allow a combination of children and fire pits. Plus you can buy alcoholic drinks (beers were about $11, mulled wine was $13) and carry them with you as you admire the lights, rather than being corralled in a holding pen. Also very un-Sydney like.
Some installations stood out, making use of the gardens and its unique collection of trees and plants; others felt familiar from the free incarnation.
Dancing Palms – a palm grove brought to life by patterned projections – is like walking inside a living, moving leopard-skin print. A Moreton bay fig covered in snaking neon lights glows like a Technicolor Christmas tree. Sea of Light outside the Calyx turns grass into liquid, dancing in waves around a whale’s head and tail; and in one field, blue and green cyber optic lights cluster like jellyfish with the city skyline glowing behind them.
Others are less exciting: what looks like Bunnings festoon lights, for instance, have been wrapped around a grove of trees.
A big part of the attraction of Lightscape is that it offers a reprieve from the overwhelming crush of people at Circular Quay. Vivid’s popularity is the very thing that threatens its existence. The sheer weight of numbers makes it difficult and stressful, particularly for small children and parents with strollers.
I was lucky enough to get a free ticket but for most families $128 is a huge amount and, if you add that to transport, dinner and drinks (there are pricey food trucks selling souvlaki, Malaysian food, jaffles and burgers), the price climbs well over $200.
So, on balance, as mortgage rates climb and a packet of chips can cost $7, is it worth shelling out for? If this is your first Vivid, then yes. If you are visiting from overseas or interstate, it’s also worth it. The lack of crowds is lovely and the walk is enjoyable – but if you’ve been to Vivid before, it doesn’t feel hugely different to other, free events you would have seen.
Vivid is not exactly Hobart’s Dark Mofo with pagan bonfires and nude midnight swims, but Sydney’s image is of a summer city, of Max Dupain’s Sunbather and a glistening sun-kissed harbour. That it can also embrace a winter festival shows a degree of reinvention – whether people are happy to pay for the pleasure remains to be seen.
The damage
Drinks: $13 mulled wine, $11 beer, two x $5 hot chocolate
Food: $12 hot chips, $20 lamb souvlaki, marshmallows two x $3.50 each
Transport: $4.20 x two (child Opal ferry fare), $8.40 x two (adult Opal ferry fare)
Tickets: $128 (tickets provided to the Guardian courtesy of Lightscape)
Total for family of four: $226.20
● Lightscape runs until 16 July. It is wheelchair-accessible. Relaxed sessions for people with sensory sensitivities will be held on 21 June and 28 June
• This story was amended on 15 June 2023. It was Max Dupain, not Rex (his son) who took the Sunbather photo.
