32nd Glebe Street Fair

BY JAMIE APPS

This weekend the streets and parks of Glebe will be taken over by some of the finest artisans, creatives and musicians the local area has to offer. For the 32nd edition of the Glebe Street Fair, the organisers have decided to put an emphasised focus on the local Glebe community and everything that it has to offer.

“This event is a showcase of Glebe where a lot has changed in 2015, I think Glebe is coming through a puberty cycle and becoming a real adult suburb where we are aware of our identity and who we are as a community. We want to share that community with visitors or people who have lived in Glebe and loved it previously,” said event director and President of the Glebe Chamber of Commerce, Kris Spann.

In the past the event has relied heavily on selling spaces to market stalls in order to cover the expenses associated with the event and the road closure, however with the new community focus this year the event has welcomed aboard sponsorship from the Broadway Shopping Centre to offset these costs. “When we explained what we wanted to do with the event they were excited to come on board. They haven’t just helped with the financial pressure, but also with logistic and marketing. You can’t walk through their centre without seeing our ‘Be You Block Party’ artwork, they have a 16-metre high banner in there which exposes the event to their audience of over three million visitors per year,” said Spann.

The Be You Block Party will take over the Peter Forsyth auditorium and basketball forecourt to showcase musicians such as Ngaiire and Dr Motte. Ngaiire is a local artist who first rose to prominence in 2013 with her debut record Lamentations, and she has quickly risen up the ranks having completed tours alongside the likes of Alicia Keys and John Legend. “I always love performing locally, I don’t get to do that too much, I haven’t played locally in the past 18 months so I’m really excited. I do enjoy a good community festival and love all the stalls so I’m really looking forward to it,” said Ngaiire.

Ngairre is extremely supportive of events such as this one, which encourage creatives to continue to pursue their passions, because she believes it is crucial that we as humans continue to “be creative and make no apologies for what we create regardless of how strange everybody else thinks it is.”

Another exciting aspect of the event that provides this encouragement is the Loco Project Shipping Container Art Gallery, which is a shipping container (funnily enough) that has been converted into a 24-hour solar powered art gallery that is going to be in place for the next six weeks. “We’ve got over 35 local artists being showcased over the six weeks and that’s really exciting because there is some amazing talent in our area and some quite famous talent that we’re not going to disclose, you’ve got to discover those for yourself,” explained Spann.

The popular Glebe Talks event, which is run monthly at the Glebe Justice Centre, has also been given it’s own stage for the day to allow local residents to convey their stories, insights and experiences to the wider community. Glebe Talks is usually run monthly on Wednesdays with six local speakers taking the stage for six minutes each to share their stories or insights with the wider community. For the Street Fair event these talks will have an added element with accompanying historical and drone footage visuals which have been created by the Glebe Society.

Throughout the day attendees of the fair will have an abundance of food and drink to choose from, with all from local producers. With everything from “a really great American corn roaster, to frozen fruit treats that look like Messina on steroids, to Messina itself”. Spann added: “There’s also going to be coffee from local roaster Little Marionette and a bar by The Rocks Brewing Company to get refreshed on what is hopefully a hot summers day.”

Finally, if shopping is more your element the fair will have over 250 street stalls, some of which have been coming to the fair for over 22 years. “We’ve gone for less stalls this year but more quality, we really focused on ensuring the stalls complimented the existing Glebe businesses,” explained Spann. “We’ve also got a really great artisan area where a lot of people from the Glebe markets are hosting tables, so you’ll get everything you love from them there.”

The Glebe Street fair is an example of the local community opening their arms, the gateway to the inner-west’s creativity for the rest of Sydney, and they are extremely excited to welcome you along and into their fold.

Sun Nov 15. 10am-5pm, Glebe Point Road, Glebe. FREE. Info: glebe.com.au/streetfair