It’s White Night and once again, you haven’t planned on how best to navigate your way through the swarms of people that are anticipated to turn up for this year’s event.
“Where are we going?”, “what are we doing now?”, “how long until we get some grub?” are the phrases you’ll hear on repeat from your mates throughout the evening unless you pay close attention to this article and follow it religiously. Think of this as a kind of treasure map, whereby we plan to lead you straight to that glistening, gleaming chest of gold waiting for you at White Night this year. You’ll make a couple of detours along the way, but, each stop off will make your evening that little bit more special!
Gather Your Troops And Get Your Drank On
The Mill House, 277-279 Flinders Lane
Firstly, you need to make numerous phone calls, send out dozens of text messages and go to the depths of hell to try and find your friends, get them ready and out of the house and then finally organise a meeting place and time, only for them to show up late while you sit on the steps of Flinders Street Station contemplating if your friends are indeed the most unorganised humans on the face of the earth. However, why not make life a little bit easier for yourself and meet them at The Mill House? Tucked away on Flinders Lane, The Mill House is the ideal place to kick-off White Night in all its glory. Get there between 4 – 6pm for amazing happy hour specials like $7.50 pints, $6.50 house spirits and $5.50 house wine. Plus during this time, you can drink till your heart’s content AND forego the large families, crying babies and 16 year-old lads outside asking if you have a spare ciggie.
Melbourne Is Lit… Literally
Swanston Street, Melbourne CBD
And on the first and last night of White Night, God said “let there be light… Or some projections of artsy stuff floating around”. Hopefully by now you’re buzzed off a few bevs and ready to go take your chances on the streets of Melbourne. Upon leaving The Mill House, head towards Swanston Street, where you will undoubtedly become engulfed by the crowds but hey, that’s White Night for you. The Swanston Street precinct will house a Red Riding Hood themed projection across RMIT University, as well as a massive cube filled with light and sound in the QV. Don’t forget to make your way over to the Melbourne Central shot tower where you can expect laser beams of light to zing past you Stars Wars style.
You’re Not A Real Hipster Unless You Hang Out At The Library
The State Library will be home to a number of light projections, interesting art installations and will be filled with some enchanting sounds for the evening. You can expect the outside of The State Library to be reminiscent of an enchanted garden – get ready to utter those “ooh’s” and “aah’s”. In the Latrobe Reading Room, get ready to be immersed into the big, blue depths of the ocean. The entire library will be underwater themed, but will also be coupled with a psychedelic infusion of colours and patterns.
Cardio Isn’t Your Thing… That’s Cool, We’ve Got You
Your feet hurt, your mouth is dry from gaping at all the sights around you and your mates keep running off in a drunken haze. It’s finally time to take a breather and head to Lonsdale Street where you can find the Lonsdale Lounge Cinema. A free open-air cinema featuring a number of award-winning films from Tropfest and the VCA.
Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked
Swing City, Collins Street
That’s enough relaxing for now – time to get up and keep on exploring what White Night has to offer! Look out for live music at Bourke Street Mall and support the local Melbournian talent being featured. But if you’ve got a bit more red bull induced energy in you, time to make your way to Collins Street again, where the roads will be filled with professional dancers, clumsy non-professional dancers and the awkward two-step shufflers. There will be music from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s as part of VicHealth’s ‘Swing City’. So grab your drunken acquaintances and start doing The Jive, or The Mashed Potato or whatever other old, weirdly named dance moves you can think of. In our opinion, we think this is the best way to end White Night – with a whole heap of laughs, yelps, hoots and maybe a rolled ankle if you’re not careful.
So hopefully, your White Night now has the structure and carefully planned out thought process you wanted from the beginning. And hopefully you can now be the leader of your troops and lead them to victory… or in this case, a free dance class (which really can be seen as the treasure chest of gold all along).
White Night runs from 7pm to 7am this Saturday the 18th.
Find out more about the White Night 2017 program here.
By Nora Omar
