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The 24 Hour Experience is coming to Ballarat with 24 live art events running every each hour for 24 hours – a marathon event sure to inspire caffeine consumption alongside art appreciation.
Originally held in Melbourne last year as a massive success, the event is designed to give participants an insight into Ballarat’s people, places and stories.
Starting at 11am on November 21, the event will be opened by Local Aboriginal Elder of the Wadawurrung Bryon Powell on the top of Black Hill and conclude the following day at the Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute performing a living documentary of their work in cancer prevention research.
What will happen in-between spans everything from the global phenomenon of the Death Cafe to the mysteries of the Cosmos at the Observatory to music from string quartets to heavy metal bands.
The event will be fully catered and a bus provided for participants to attend each event. During the witching hours, a music soundscape made of snoring noises has been designed to either lull participants to sleep or “annoy the hell” out of them.
Creative director Gorkem Acaroglu said the event was designed to explore contemporary – rather than historical – Ballarat.
“We did the 24 hour experience in Melbourne in March 2014 and so what we’ve done is replicate the concept in Ballarat but with new artists and experiences and concepts,” she said.
Ms Acaroglu also said the event would blend live theatre and film forms to become a sort-of “living documentary” that would be filmed but not edited into a movie.
“It’s quite a unique event that, as far as I know, hasn’t been done in Ballarat before,”she said.
“Its’ a 24 hour event where a group of people bond over a 24-hour period where they experience something they won’t ever really experience again.”
She said the event would have plenty of highlights, including the Observatory stop.
“It’s obviously a really amazing place but also the story we’ll be exploring is of one of the volunteers that works works there but also the astrophysics of the site,” she said.
“There’s also an amazing piece that will be in the centre of town in Sturt Street that will have singers on three towers singing across the city with people on pedestals looking at the ground, looking at the idea that: shouldn’t ordinary people be revered as much as famous people?”
Attendees can choose to do the full 24 hours or a 12-hour or six-hour stint. They will be given a backpack survival kit, a chair and gifts along the way.