Newcastle

Newcastle holds a variety of cultural events and festivals.
The Newcastle Regional Show is held in the Newcastle Showground annually. There are a mixture of typical regional show elements such as woodchopping displays, showbags, rides and stalls and usually fireworks to compliment the events in the main arena.
The Mattara festival, founded in 1961, is the official festival of Newcastle with a more traditional 'country fair' type program that combines a parade, rides, sporting events, band competitions and portrait and landscape painting exhibitions.
The Newcastle Jazz Festival is held across three days in August, and attracts performers and audiences from all over Australia.
The Shootout Film Festival, first started in Newcastle in 1999. This is the film festival where film-makers come together in one place to make a short film in 24 hours. It is run annually in July.
This Is Not Art is a national festival of new media and arts held in Newcastle each year over the October long weekend. Since its humble beginnings in 1998, it has become one of the leading arts festivals in Australia dedicated to the work and ideas of communities not included in other major Australian arts festivals. The umbrella program includes the independent festivals Electrofringe, the National Young Writers' Festival, National Student Media Conference, Sound Summit and other projects that vary from year to year.
Rainbow Visions holds its annual Festival in October for the local Gay and Lesbian Community. Set over 10 days the festival ends with annual Picnic day where up to a thousand Gay and Lesbians gather together with their family and friends.
The Newcastle Entertainment Centre, located inside the Newcastle Showground is a popular venue for regular events including wrestling, concerts and monster truck shows.
Newcastle has an active youth music culture, as well as a Conservatorium of Music which is part of the University of Newcastle. It continues to support local bands and has a large underground music scene. Silverchair, the highly successful Australian band, hail from Newcastle, as does the Australian band The Screaming Jets. It has a fertile punk rock and hardcore scene, and over the past 15 years has spawned many successful local acts.
Noted Australian artists John Olsen and William Dobell once lived in Newcastle and today the city Newcastle is home to a wide range of public, commercial and private galleries. The Newcastle Regional Art Gallery is home to an extensive collection of works by contemporary and historical Australian visual artists. Gallery Director Nick Mitzevich is the youngest gallery director in Australia and has given the gallery a much more contemporary focus since he took over in 2002. The gallery is currently planning a major redevelopment which is the subject of an architectural design competition.
Newcastle has a variety of smaller theatres, but the main theatre in the CBD is now the Civic, at Wheeler Place, (seating capacity about 1500), one of Australia's great historic theatres built during 1929 in Art Deco style. It hosts a wide range of musicals, plays, concerts, dance and other events each year. Newcastle previously boasted several large theatres, among them the oldest purpose-built theatre in Australia, the Victoria Theatre on Perkins Street (built 1876, capacity 1750), saw touring international opera companies such as the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and other troupes, and played host to some of the greatest stars of the age, such as Dame Nellie Melba, Gladys Moncrieff, and Richard Tauber, (it is now closed and derelict); the Century, Nineways, Broadmeadow, (built 1941, capacity 1800) although largely used as a cinema was a popular Symphony orchestra venue (demolished 1990 after being severely damaged by the 1989 earthquake); the Hunter (capacity 1000) at The Junction, had advanced modern stage facilities, but was eventually sold and demolished to make way for a motel that was destroyed by the 1989 earthquake. The decline in theatres and cinemas from the 1960s onwards was blamed on television.
Newcastle has also been home to noted Australian actors, comedians and entertainers, including Sarah Wynter, John Doyle (part of comic act Roy and HG), Susie Porter, Celia Ireland, Yahoo Serious and Jonathan Biggins. The cast of the Tap Dogs show also come from Newcastle.
Newcastle is home to the Octapod Association, a New Media Arts collective established in 1996. Octapod presents the annual This Is Not Art Festival and is also home to the Podspace Gallery.