16 December 2013

The Village Bizarre at The Rocks, Sydney

The Rocks has to be one of my favourite areas in Sydney. Its the "historic" part of the city, one I visited for a touch of history and nostalgia before I visited London and realised how young it was in comparison.

The Rocks is most famous for the weekend markets where you can pick up all sorts of hand crafted items from soaps and candles to jewellery and dresses. There are a number of things to do even when the markets are not on. You will find museums, galleries, walks (haunted and regular), cafes and pubs, shops, an old cottage from 1816 and the Sydney Observatory just to name a few.

Among other locations around Sydney, the Rocks hosted a number of art installations as part of Light up Sydney and prior to the Village Bizarre being introduced, during the summer months, the markets went nocturnal in The Markets by Moonlight.

Anyway, for my Friday the 13th last week, my brother and I headed over to explore the Village Bizarre. If you are going this Friday and you want to be surprised, stop here. This is a spoiler alert! I will be revealing what is behind the curtain...well in my case anyway ;)


We collected our masks from the information stand and followed the feathers to a pop-up bar along George St. Stepping inside we were greeted with white surroundings, fellow mask wearers, nests and fluffy pouffes you could sit on while sipping drinks and listen to the DJ or chatted away. Winding our way to the top floor we found a projector screening images of skies, birds and the like creating the "Hole in the Sky" the bar is named after.

Leaving the bird house, we head out to find out what was behind those red velvet curtains. Behind one along Jack Mundey Place we found the Illusionist, an act which had nothing to do with magic and lots to do with laughs.

The Parlour was host to a few different stalls including one tent where we found a puppet afraid of the dark and cute rhyming story that kids in the audience loved. Through the Parlour the Cabinet of Curiosities tent was found tucked away behind Kendall Lane. It was guarded with inflated clowns and inside we treated to a number by the hottest cross-dresser I've ever seen! Not only could he pull off bubble-gum pink hair but damn, he was better than me at walking (and dancing) in heels!


We walked past the markets, fortune tellers, another pop-up bar, outdoor public karaoke for the courageous, and a silent disco where i had fun shaking my tail feather and watching my brother laugh his head off at me.

The Village Bizarre is only in its second year so there is room for a little improvement but i had a great time exploring and, all in all, for a free event, it was a fun way to spend a few hours and it was a lot of laughs. Grab some friends and check it out this Friday 20th Dec for its last night before wrapping up for the year.

If you have been, what did you think of it?

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