The 7 Best Things To Do In Brisbane This October
Zenobia Frost is a Brisbane-based writer and 2015 ArtStart recipient.…
Look, we know you’re diligently spending October indoors carving pumpkins and threading that fake cobweb stuff all over your shrine to Beelzebub, but there’s plenty to treat yourself to (or trick yourself into) in Brissie this month. Check out an indie art festival, dust off your skateboard for Kurilpa Derby, or settle in for October’s customary litres and litres of refreshing German beer.
[listicle]Art Vs. Science: everyone wins
Celebrating the inventor in us all, Fun Palace brings together arts and science for a day of play, adventure and innovation. Take part in experiments, solve scientific mysteries, and map out the weird and wonderful through art. Fun Palace events take place all over the globe on October 1, but Brisbane’s family-friendly hub is State Library of Queensland.
Trick or treat: why not both?
It wouldn’t be October without some genuine spooky shenanigans, but never fear! (Actually, do fear. Definitely do fear.) Movie World’s team of professional scaresters have sharpened their axes and readied the fake blood for a month-long series of Fright Night events. This year ups the ante with four different terror-mazes, panic rooms, behind-the-screams park tours, and a Halloween film festival. The adrenaline will last you right up until Christmas. Fright Night runs every Friday and Saturday night in October at Warner Brothers Movie World.
Set the BARI high
The biennial festival of Brisbane Artist-Run Initiatives (BARI) provides fresh creative platforms for the indie artists who shape our city. With a program comprised of a network of diverse exhibitions and events, immersion in BARI is a damn good way to explore the underground of emerging and experimental art flourishing in Brisbane. BARI Festival runs from October 7 to 23 at venues all over Brisbane.
Photo: BARI Festival/Facebook
Silence in the golden age
The Roaring Twenties cinema series returns this month, with a hotsy-totsy new venue. The Metro Arts Lumen Room screens silent shorts and feature films accompanied by live piano, kicking off the monthly program with classic 1927 flick Sunrise. Roaring Twenties re-launches on October 14 at Metro Arts.
The tip of the iceberg
If you missed the boat when tickets to Titanic the Movie the Play sold out at this year’s Brisbane Comedy Festival, you’re in luck: though the real Titanic only had one chance, Brisbane gets another. “The greatest story of love, loss and lifeboats” returns to offer passengers an immersive tragi-comic experience. Queensland Maritime Museum helped put real life-boats on set along with a replica of the doomed ship’s iconic bow. Get on board! Titanic the Movie the Play runs until October 22 at Brisbane Powerhouse.
Photo: Brisbane Powerhouse
Rollerblade parade
West End Festival celebrates Brisbane’s most colourful suburb, capturing the spirit of the community-led festivals that took over Boundary Street in the ’80s and ’90s. The week-long fiesta sees a melting pot of counter-cultural creatives spill out of venues, local businesses, galleries and music venues — into parks and sometimes straight into the streets. Don’t miss the big parade: a Brisbane-af answer to the Running of the Bulls, the Kurilpa Derby is a “celebration of life on wheels”, with skates, bikes, scooters and floats encouraged to have a wheely good time. West End Festival runs from October 22 to 29 .
Photo: West End Festival/Facebook
Prost!
Everyone knows the best thing about October is pretending to be German as an excuse to get betrunken. The Bavarian Bier Café is here for your seasonal drinking needs, with a beer line-up on tap worthy of Übermenschen. We have a lot to live up to: during 2013’s Oktoberfest, the people of Munich consumed 7.7 million litres of beer. Prove your commitment, at the very least, by taking part in the café’s 1kg schnitzel-eating challenge. Entry is free; snaps of you in lederhosen are priceless. Oktoberfest runs in our veins, but also all month at Bavarian Bier Café. [/listicle] [qantas_widget code=BNE]Check out Qantas flights to Brisbane here.[/qantas_widget]
Zenobia Frost is a Brisbane-based writer and 2015 ArtStart recipient. Her reviews, essays and poems have appeared in The Lifted Brow, The Guardian, Cordite, Voiceworks and Overland. Find her on Twitter @zenfrost.