With its smooth grey pavers and daring amphitheatre steps, Crown Street Mall has become quite the unofficial skate park - much to the annoyance of many retailers.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But, on the October long weekend, lower Crown Street will be properly taken over by jumps, ramps, speakers, lights and a challenging 80-metre course set up for a national extreme skateboarding championship.
Held over two days, Australian Boarder X Championships will be part of Wollongong's first annual Blender Festival, a four-day multi-venue gathering that includes the Yours and Owls music festival and the Wonderwall art festival.
Funded by Wollongong City Council and Destination Wollongong, the festival will also include other arts, photography as technology events, as well as a TEDx-style experts panel at the Regent Theatre.
Festival director Ben Terry said the festival was designed to inspire Wollongong residents and give them some out-of-the-ordinary experiences, and also to change the perceptions of people from outside the Illawarra.
"Wollongong is really becoming innovative - especially through the Innovation Campus and iAccelerate are great assets - and the natural beauty of the town has really been enhanced by changes along the foreshore," Mr Terry said.
"And then all those changes in Globe Lane and lower Crown [street], where all the cafe and small bars are really trying to build a local, community feel, is really improving the culture of the town.
"The city looks like it's going places, and I think locals understand that, but we want to attract and educate people outside the Illawarra that Wollongong is changing."
He said it was hoped Blender would continue to grow after its first year, eventually becoming a whole-town festival similar to Austin's famous South-By-Southwest.
"Hopefully within five years this can be a world-renowned festival," he said.
Organisers have lodged a development application for the skate festival with the council. It seeks to close Crown Street between Corrimal and Kembla streets.
It describes the Boarder X event as a "unique form of action sport that combines elements of downhill skating, with transition skating".
The event will attract up to 2000 spectators, the application says, and will begin set up from 7am on October 1. It will be packed up, and the road re-opened, by 5pm on October 2.
A traffic management plan will be in place, the documents say, and all surrounding business and residents will be notified about any disruptions by letterbox drop.
The applicants say the Blender Festival and Boarder-X event will encourage people to visit and stay in the lower Crown Street area, meaning businesses can expect "additional trade on the event day, and the chance that they will be exposed to new customers from within the city.
"The event will bring a point of difference to the city and provide the local users with a unique opportunity to engage with and enjoy a spectacle of action sports," the documents say.
The Boarder X plans are on exhibition through the council's website until August 12.
FESTIVAL EVENTS
Blender Festival, October 1-4. Events include:
Yours and Owls – two-day music, film and arts festival in Stuart Park, headlined by Saskwatch, Salmonella Dub Soundsystem, The Delta Riggs, Gang of Youths, The Pinheads, The Preatures, Ash Grunwald, Cloud Control, The Rubens, Shining Bird and The Smith Street Band. October 2-3.
Wonderwalls – an award-winning street art festival that will transform Wollongong’s city walls into a gallery. From October 1-4.
Boarder X Championships – national extreme skateboarding event previously held in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Newcastle, which will install a purpose-built skate course in lower Crown Street. October 1-2.
Mind Shift – a challenging forum modelled on TEDx, to be held at the Regent Theatre covering topical issues in the tech, music and arts spheres. October 2.
The Art of Art – contemporary Aboriginal artist Richard Bell’s exhibition at Wollongong Art Gallery, which will combine political bite and caustic humour to tackle the position of Indigenous art and artists in the contemporary art world. October 1-4.
Digipix – two talented photographers, Stephen Dupont and Delly Carr, will discuss their art, running interactive workshops, exhibiting and talking about technological changes. Dupont’s exhibition will be a digital exhibition projected onto the art gallery’s wall at night, while Carr’s will be showcased in the IPAC. October 1-4.
