Above image: an illuminated Flinders Street Station. Image of the 2014 event courtesy White Night Melbourne

White Night Melbourne, Australia’s most celebrated cultural event, will return on Saturday 21 February 2015 for one night only.

Inspired by Paris’ Nuit Blanche, Melbourne’s city streets, cultural institutions, public spaces, landmarks, and laneways, will once again be transformed for 12 hours for the third instalment of White Night Melbourne.

This year promises an even bigger line-up of events.  The 2015 event will see an expanded footprint covering nine city precincts, from Southbank Boulevard in the south to Victoria Street in the north. Exciting activities have been planned along the Yarra River and Alexandra Gardens, while a new precinct has been created around the Melbourne Museum area.

Visitors will be able to craft their own White Night experience from an extensive list of free and ticketed events, encompassing art exhibitions, light shows, music, theatre, dining, film and design.

The cultural scavenger hunt will begin at 7pm and end at 7am. Design aficionados can get their fix on events such as a spontaneous basket-weaving marathon at a secret location, a sound installation and improvisatory large scale drawing in black ink, a horticultural symposium featuring sensory plants, a light show projection on the World Heritage-listed façade of the Royal Exhibition Building, and a piano designed and painted by Steph Hughes at Melbourne Central, on which local musicians will perform.

Melbourne’s cultural institutions – including Arts Centre Melbourne, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the National Gallery of Victoria, the State Library of Victoria and Melbourne Museum – will be open all night long.

More than 500,000 people flooded the city centre at last year’s event, almost doubling the previous year’s attendance figures. Andrew Walsh, White Night artistic director, estimates that this year it could double again to about one million.

White Night Melbourne is a State Government of Victoria initiative created by Victorian Major Events.

For more information, please visit: www.whitenightmelbourne.com.au