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The Sydney Road Street Party is one of a number of large street-based festivals in Melbourne, Australia. While many other festivals of this type in Melbourne celebrate a particular occasion or cultural group, the Sydney Road Street Party celebrates the cultural diversity of one of Melbourne's most multicultural suburbs - the inner-northern suburb of Brunswick. The street party is usually held on a Sunday at the end of February, and runs from midday to 7pm. Sydney Road is closed to traffic from Union Street to Victoria Street in Brunswick, a length of about 1.5 km.
At the intersection of Sydney Road with each side street within the festival area, stages are erected for a variety of ethnic, folk and rock music to be performed live. Hundreds of community groups and local businesses set up stalls on the road between the stages. Additionally, street theatre and children's shows, and a wide variety of tasty food from many cuisines is there to be sampled. Attendance at the festival has steadily grown in recent years and in 2008, about 60,000 people enjoyed the festivities. The Street Party launches the annual Brunswick Music Festival.
History
The event that became The Sydney Road Street Party was originally an initiative of the Brunswick Ethnic Communities Council sponsored by the City of Brunswick, since incorporated into the City of Moreland. It was a held in a park on Victoria Street, west of Sydney Road, in 1989. The following year, the event was relocated to Dawson Street, between Sydney Road and the Upfield Railway Line. As this was so successful, it was moved to Sydney Road, between Union and Albert Streets, and extended in subsequent years to Victoria Street. The street party is organised and managed by a locally-based community arts organisation under contract to the Moreland City Council, who are its major source of funding.