Sydney is filled with colour and light for sixth annual Sydney Festival

Vivid Sydney (23 May – 9 June) was officially opened tonight by the NSW Premier Mike Baird, as the Sails of iconic Sydney Opera House came alive with world-exclusive, stunning 3D-mapped projections, and the Harbour City was filled with colour and light.

Vivid Sydney, the largest light, music and ideas festival in the Southern Hemisphere, and Australia’s Event of the Year, features a huge, free nightly light show of lighting installations, building projections and water theatre around Sydney harbour from 6pm until midnight, as well as live music performances and over 200 creative industry events.

Developed six years ago by Destination NSW, the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency, Vivid Sydney attracted more than 800,000 visitors in 2013.

New to Vivid Sydney this year, Harbour Lights will see Sydney’s iconic ferries and vessels lit up, with their lights computer-controlled by satellite navigation as they glide across the world’s most beautiful harbour. Also new, to Vivid Sydney, the city’s central business area, Martin Place, will put on a light show of its own, with large light installations, 3D building projections and lasers.

Sydney’s famous Harbour Bridge will become the world’s largest interactive light display, as visitors are invited to choose the colours they would like to ‘paint’ the Bridge using an interactive touch screen, through a collaboration with Intel and Sydney’s lighting experts, 32 Hundred Lighting.

A key highlight of Vivid Sydney is always Lighting the Sails of the Sydney Opera House which this year have been designed by award-winning creative agency 59 Productions, renowned for their work on the London Olympic Games' Opening Ceremony and the West-end show War Horse.