Midsumma Festival

Midsumma Festival
Carnival crowd at Alexandra Garden 2010
Genre	LGBT festival
Location(s)	Melbourne, Australia
Founded	1989
Website
http://midsumma.org.au

Midsumma Festival is an annual celebration of queer, intersex, transsexual, transgender, bisexual, lesbian and gay culture, held during January and February in Melbourne, Australia. The festival began as a one-week celebration of gay pride in 1989. The festival has expanded over the years to a three-week event that attracts 120,000 individuals to its opening Carnival alone.

Midsumma Festival is considered a major event by Tourism Victoria and the City of Melbourne, with both government agencies providing funds to the festival. The festival is one of the top five gay and lesbian arts and cultural celebrations, along with New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and Sydney.

Previous events have included what at the time was Australia’s only gay short play competition, Pink Shorts, a collaborative project engaging theatre veterans and drama newcomers to bring new short works to the Melbourne stage. Summa Cabaret which featured Hugh Jackman, Geraldine Turner, and the ensembles Combo Fiasco and The Great Big Opera Company.

The festival, has since 2008 opened with Carnival on the middle Sunday of January. Carnival is a day-long celebration in the City of Melbourne providing access to both gay and mainstream communities to picnic with family and friends, view entertainment, as well as browse stalls. The festivities continue into the night with T Dance – an outdoor dance party – featuring some of Melbourne’s and Australia’s most popular DJs.

Midsumma’s visual arts program features exhibitions in and around Melbourne from local, national and international gay artists. Yarra Arts and Queer City play home to many of the exhibitions.

The festival’s performing arts program includes musicals, theatre, cabaret, film, spoken word, music events and dance parties. These performing arts events are largely produced by the community.

Traditionally held in Alexandra Gardens with stalls, food, and entertainment taking place through the commitment of Midsumma’s principal partner, the City of Melbourne, the event relocated to Birrarung Marr in 2011. The main stage includes entertainment from the coming festival program to showcase and promote the coming events. Some community and arts and entertainment identities to have performed include Luke Gallagher, Dolly Diamond, Anthony Manchetti, Hannah Gadsby and Adam Richard, as well as popular Drag Production Show "The Classics".