About Perth's Events

Perth's music festival smorgasbord offers a comprehensive selection for the music lover. A repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary are being performed by a large number of professional, semi-professional and non-professional music groups as well as choral groups and choirs in different venues in and around Perth.

The West Australian Symphony Orchestra calls Perth its home. The famous symphony orchestra performs their fare of orchestral music during regional tours in Western Australia and more regularly from their base at the Perth Concert Hall. There is the international reggae music festival, the Bob Marley Outernational Day. Besides these, rock concerts are being regularly held in Perth. Two major rock concerts held regularly are the nationwide event, Big Day Out and the exclusive to Perth only Rock-It. Perth is the oldest and largest multi-arts festival in Australia. Established in 1953, The Perth International Arts Festival grows in quality and diversity with each passing year. The festival has recently been extended to four weeks of performances and activities.

The Big Day Out is a music festival that tours Australasia and is being held annually. It s a twelve hour day of great bands, non-stop dancing and a magical atmosphere. The festival began in 1992 as a show that started out being exclusive only to Sydney Australia but by 1993, it was extended to Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and shows were added in New Zealand, Auckland and the Gold Coast by 1994. The festival has been regularly held annually since then, except for the year 1998 when the mostly electronic and dance event organized by the promoters was cancelled.

The Big Day out however, returned in full force the year after that. Among many other notables that have played the festival are the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Coldplay, The White Stripes, System of a Down, Screaming Trees, Nine Inch Nails, Silverchair, Metallica, Nirvana, New Order, Muse, Sound Garden, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Basement Jaxx. Because the Sydney event had become so popular, by the year 2004 Sydney held a historic second event (the programme lined up for both events was similar except for the local acts) for the first and only time in the festival s notable history.

As of this year (2006), the Big Day s line-up features eight stages offering popular contemporary electronic and rock music and less mainstream acts from both the international and the local scene. The Rock-It Festival is held twice every year and features modern rock music. The first Rock-It Festival was held in 2001 and by 2005, Rock-It had become so popular, police had to barricade off the mosh pit to prevent possible crowd crush. Lead singer of Andrew Stockdale from Wolfmother stopped playing for fifteen minutes to call for calm as hundreds of over enthusiastic concert-goers attempted to breach the barricades to get inside the pit.

The Perth International Festival of the Arts, the country s largest and oldest multi-arts festival outreaching the city boundaries that it was named after, highlights music as part of its line-up. It was founded by the University of West Australia in 1953. Music highlights features the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with two Mozart and Haydn programmes under Iván Fischer, the Belcea Quartet playing Bartók, Lisa Milne singing both Jacques Brel and a "twilight" recital including James Ledger's acclaimed chamber reduction of Strauss' Four Last Songs. Regular components include the Becks Verandah, for music and the international jazz programme, and the WA Fringe.

The Perth International Arts Festival grows in quality and diversity with each year that passes and has just recently been extended to four weeks of performances and activities.