We were expecting the display in Martin Place to feature buildings covered in lights, and displays such as creatures crawling up the sides of office blocks. As it turned out, that was so last year. Instead Martin place had been taken over by several corporations intent on promoting their brands. One of them was Intel, which on one day had a guy dressed as a giant robot. I didn’t get to seem him during the time I was there. Maybe next year!
Other features included trees made of slices of wood that would make sounds and change colour when you touched the metal contact on the edges.
A food and drinks place in the centre absolutely packed with people. From a distance I could see they had a great range of wine and craft beer available, but we had other things to see so didn’t have time to explore those pop up street food areas.
The area was mainly for kids as there were a number of interactive things like a light effect that kids could play with and have a picture sent to their FB page, as well as a drum playing area with over 20 colour lit drums. Not something it was possible to stand close to for any length of time!
My favourite section was the Intel drone display. They had about 5 drones on display for kids to play with and between each game the flight controllers would run over and swap batteries and test them before sending them up again. Knowing that many restaurants are considering using these kinds of things to transport meals to patrons, I was very curious about their responsiveness and safety. Not one hit another one while I was watching, even with kids playing with them. Pretty cool!
I also asked my partner to take my photo in a particularly iconic location near the Martin Place fountain. If you have seen the movie The Matrix you may recognise it. Here’s the original.
I had been in Sydney when they had done the filming, and remember needing to take different streets to work to avoid the production. It had also been around the time I’d decided to give up on pursuing an acting career, thinking that being involved in the Australian Film Industry probably wasn’t worth it. Then The Matrix and Superman had started production in Sydney and I was like ‘doh’! I could’ve been an extra!
If you didn’t recognise the picture above, here’s an edited version with obvious join lines so you can see the difference.
Alright, onto part 3!
Click on the links below for the other parts
Part 1: Vivid Sydney. Get ready for 2016! Sydney University Vivid Display
Part 2: Vivid Sydney. Martin Place Sydney Vivid Display.
Part 3: Vivid Sydney. The Opera House. The Harbour Bridge. The Rocks.
