Japan Festival Returns to Perth

The annual Japan Festival of Perth returns this weekend!

The Japan Festival of Perth is a free event which celebrates the long history of friendship between Australian and Japanese people.

This year, the Festival will be held on Saturday 7 March from 12:30pm-8:00pm in Forest Place, Perth.

Click here to view the program!

There will also be heaps of Japanese food, craft and goods stalls for you to visit including Japanese souvenirs, anime and cosplay goods and a chance to try origami and even a shateki darts game!

Yummy Japanese food that will be available at the Festival include: udon, yaki-soba and ramen noodles, takoyaki (octopus balls), kaki-gori (shaved ice with sugar syrup), okonomi-yaki (Japanese pancake) and of course, sushi!

There are significant Japanese nationals working and studying in Western Australia and also some are living on a permanent basis raising their Australian families.

The numbers are growing, reflecting the long history of friendship between the two nations.

The Japan Festival Association in Perth Inc. (“JFAP”) was established in 2013 as a non-profit organisation with an aim to raise the overall Japanese profile in WA.

As part of its activities JFAP reached out to these communities to look for ways to become more closely involved with and to contribute to this beautiful multi-cultural society.

The idea of Japanese “MATSURI” (meaning “festival” in Japanese) was launched as an opportunity to realise this dream under the name of the Japan Festival Event.

Click here for more information on the Festival! View the video below from last year's Festival!

The matsuri is a free event with lots of fun for kids and families as well as adults, offering a great opportunity for the Perth community to experience one of the most important cultures of Japan.

View Source

Perth International Arts Festival 2015

As part of the line-up for the $22.4 million festival, World War I themes feature prominently, with giant puppets set to roam the streets and the stories of Indigenous soldiers presented on stage.

In total, more than 1,000 artists will feature in the festival's 63rd year.

"We're very fortunate this year that almost everyone we wanted to come to the festival has said yes, so actually the scale of it and the intensity of it is increased by the fact that people around the world, artists around the world really want to come and play in Perth," festival director Jonathan Holloway told the ABC.

"It's by far the largest festival Perth has had."

This is the fourth and last year Mr Holloway will sit as director of the festival, before handing over the reins to a yet to be announced successor.

His first festival included the grand spectacle of Place Des Anges, which saw high-wire performers dump nearly two tonnes of feathers on ecstatic crowds above St George's Terrace on a hot summer night in 2012.

He said while Perth audiences have always been "incredible", there was a courage and willingness to engage with performances that had emerged during his four years at the helm.

"We've seen them really engage in unusual and unexpected ways of connecting with arts," he said.

"Whether that be through iPads, or under feathers or on the beach at dawn, whether that be rolling about with death in wheat, or breaking bread with deaf-blind Israeli performers, it's been an audience all along that's really taking creative risk

A Word from the Director:

My four Festivals as Artistic Director in Perth have been about two things – stories and experiences

The stories have spanned millennia and have explored who we are, where we have come from, our current situation and where we might be going.

They are stories about this land, between the desert and the sea, defined by and beholden to both. Stories of our relationships with each other and with the rest of the world. The truth of our digitally complex, environmentally conscious, culturally diverse world and how we reconcile with it.

While the stories are intellectually complex, it is the visceral experiences that have the power to transform and define us.

Curating experiences is less straightforward than telling stories. No two people approach a Festival moment in the same way, and no four people will agree on the meaning – or indeed value – of the experience they just shared.

No two Festival journeys will be the same, and our hope is that your travels through this Festival will include experiences both intimate and epic. Experiences that whet the appetite and stimulate all five senses. Moments that allow us to remember something we all knew as children – that the map is not the territory, that the best discoveries are made by straying from the path or committing to a fantastic voyage.

Stories and experiences in perfect collision can propel us around the world in one Festival. In our constant search for and celebration of the extraordinary, we have looked far and near, seeking out ever new ways to harness the greatest talent from around the world and nurture the best artists from Western Australia.

Perth International Arts Festival is a beautiful and much loved thing, and I have been honoured to spend half a decade getting to know its character and its desires, and to have guided it to new places.

And so we come to another crossroads, and the beginning of our next great adventure …

Bon voyage.

EVENT DATES - 13 Feb–7 March 2015

Find out what is on at the Perth International Arts Festival 2015 at the official site

Live Entertainment Bands MAY at Paddy Maguires Subiaco

MAY 2014 line up:

• Fri 2nd: Royal Sampler
• Sat 3rd: Madam Montage
• Sun 4th: 2 Easy
• Fri 9th: Royal Sampler
• Sat 10th: Cherry Lips
• Sun 11th: 2 Easy
• Fri 16th:  Easy tigers
• Sat 17th: The Avenue
• Fri 23rd: 43 Cambridge
• Sat 24th: Madam Montage
• Fri 30th: 2 Easy
• Sat 31st: Cherry Lips

Happy St Patrick's Day from Paddy Maguires Subiaco

Happy St Patrick's Day Everyone!

Spend St Patricks Day 2014 at Paddy Maguire's Subiaco

St Patricks Day 2014 at Paddy Maguire's Subiaco

St Patricks Day 2014 at Paddy Maguire's Subiaco

Perth To Go Gaga

It is shaping up as the biggest year of live music in Perth's history.

Following tour announcements already this week from Kanye West and Robbie Williams, Lady Gaga has revealed she will head Down Under in August with her artRAVE, The ARTPOP Ball tour.

The eccentric pop star, right, will open the Australian leg of the tour at Perth Arena on August 20.

Gaga's die-hard fans, known as Little Monsters, have the chance to get up close and personal with the Bad Romance singer if they are willing to spend big.

For $1499, fans can sit inside an on-stage viewing area, known as the ARTPOP Zone, and then have an after-show meet and greet with Gaga in a private lounge area with cocktails and beverages. They will also get a photo with the singer.

Tickets go on sale at noon on Tuesday through Ticketek, starting at $92.65

What's On This Week At Paddys! Feb 2014