Sydney Fringe Festival, New South Wales’ largest independent arts festival, announced that the 2020 Festival will go ahead, playing a crucial role in creating income-generating opportunities for Sydney’s creative sectors in the wake of COVID-19.

Fringe CEO and Creative Director Kerri Glasscock said, “The creative sector has registered a loss of more than $200 million in income since Friday 13 March due to the cancellation of events and presently Sydney’s artists, technicians and venue staff are looking to suffer a terrible six months between now and September, with their work opportunities screeching to a halt. Sydney Fringe is committed to being here for them, creating income-generating opportunities once Spring is here. There’s no question, come September, this stimulus and celebration of culture is exactly what Sydney will need. There are so many reasons that our show must go on!”

The positive economic impact of Sydney Fringe 2019 was to inject $11,939,441 into the Sydney economy, with $660,000 crucially going to artists during the month of Fringe. 2019 saw Sydneysiders attend 498 Fringe events across 25 postcodes, with all of the flow-on effects to small business. With an enormous amount of culture happening in small to medium venues right across the city and greater Sydney, Fringe stages events that are perfectly sized for the people of Sydney to safely venture out to reclaim their city.

Head On Photo Festival, Australia’s leading annual international photography event, has today announced that it will go ahead as a predominantly online event from 1-17 May, accompanied by a diverse program of webinars and events. Recipients of the Head On Photo Awards, including categories for Portrait, Landscape and Student, will be announced on 1 May as planned. Head On plans to stage a scaled-back physical festival in November 2020.

Head On Festival Director Moshe Rosenzveig OAM said: “The Head On Photo Festival team have been regularly checking updates regarding the coronavirus pandemic and we are making plans to best protect the public, our artists, volunteers and staff. We recognise the extraordinary effort photographers have put into delivering Award submissions and preparing exhibitions over recent months and plan to honour and celebrate this by working to create an online Head On Photo Festival.

This online version of the Festival will be held as scheduled from 1-17 May and will be accompanied by an exciting program of online seminars and events throughout the Festival period. We will then work to present a scaled-back physical festival later in the year. At a time when many people will be in isolation, this digital platform will provide our audiences around the world with a variety of interesting artworks, images and activities to engage and interact with.”

Image: Lisa Tomasetti. Courtesy Head On Photo Festival

DESIGN Canberra 2020 is calling for leading architecture, design and craft initiatives to be part of the annual three-week festival, that takes over the nation’s capital from 9 until 29 November, celebrating Canberra as a global city of design and a living design laboratory.

Now in its seventh year, the fast-growing festival – which attracted a record 114,770 people in 2019 – showcases the city’s thriving design community and in 2020 will present more than 200 events, exhibitions, talks, tours, activations, markets, collaborations, artists’ studios and open homes.

With humanity facing unprecedented challenges including climate change and a global health pandemic, DESIGN Canberra’s 2020 theme of ‘Care’ is intensely relevant.

“In 2020, the value of care is more important than ever: for our community, for our environment, for architecture and for our world. The festival will become a collaborative forum for contemporary, experimental and authentic design to celebrate and explore the ways that care and caring is valuable and vital,” explained CEO of Craft ACT: Craft & Design, and Artistic Director of DESIGN Canberra, Rachael Coghlan.

For the craft and design sector, care underpins a designer’s or maker’s commitments: to forge new relationships to materials; to invest time in developing techniques and skill, and to honour design’s tradition of exchange, mentoring and collaboration.