A festival of light, music, art and entertainment will return to Haymarket after the City of Sydney awarded Neon Playground 2.0 a $200,000 precinct activation grant, part of its $44 million long-term financial plan for the Chinatown tourism precinct.

The celebration of Asian cultures is expected to attract 350,000 people to the area when it kicks off in March 2025.

Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore AO said the grant complements the work the City of Sydney is doing to revitalise the Haymarket and Chinatown area.

“We’ve allocated $44 million in our long-term financial plan to fund Chinatown’s success into the future,” the Lord Mayor said. “We’re delighted to be working with the Haymarket Alliance and community to bring Neon Playground 2.0 to life.”

Since 2010, the City of Sydney has initiated numerous public domain investments in the historic precinct with a large-scale transformation of the Haymarket area.

“We’ve completed significant upgrades to local streets, pedestrianised George St through Haymarket, introduced night markets and hosted a range of other events including the annual Sydney Lunar Festival celebrations. We’ve also supported new cultural attractions such as public artworks and the Museum of Chinese in Australia,” the Lord Mayor said.

All grant applications are assessed against strict selection criteria to ensure the projects can meet the grants program objectives and support the local economy.

Neon Playground 2.0 will be run by the Haymarket Alliance, the team behind the inaugural Neon Playground By Chinatown festival in late 2022.

Alliance manager Kevin Cheng said the group was humbled by the grant and was confident of recreating the success of the inaugural Neon Playground event, held when the city emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It’s a really exciting time for Chinatown and the wider Haymarket precinct and we believe Neon Playground 2.0 will be another memorable milestone in the Chinatown and Haymarket story,” Cheng said.

Cheng said the grant would enable the alliance to extend the festival beyond Dixon Street and to partner with more community groups and businesses.

“It gives opportunities to organisations such as the Haymarket Alliance to fund a large-scale activation that will benefit the entire district, increasing foot traffic and vibrancy to the area. It’s our aim to make Neon Playground 2.0 the largest Asian-Australian creative festival in Sydney.”

Haymarket will come alive during the event with creative and cultural experiences, lights and music, art and ideas.

The special activation grant is part of the Haymarket and Chinatown revitalisation strategy, a multimillion-dollar plan to activate and improve streets and public spaces, shopfronts, parks and lighting in the area.

The City of Sydney has also backed a “chef’s gallery” style upgrade for Chinatown. The council unveiled plans to bring the “theatre of food preparation” to the street by funding renovation works that would allow restaurants to showcase the cooking and preparation of food to Dixon Street visitors.

Restaurants and businesses that take up the food theatre renovation offer will be able to receive up to $60,000 in matched funding from the council.

Ornamental Dixon St gates also to be revived

Chinatown Ceremonial Gates. Dixon St south. Photo: City of Sydney.

Work to restore the ornamental Chinatown Ceremonial Gates on Dixon Street will also soon get under way.

The extensive restoration work will include the installation of new lights to illuminate the pagoda-style tiled roofs and decorative inscribed panels that are guarded by lion sculptures, repainting the concrete and timber structures and replacing roof tiles, marble panels and the existing lion sculptures.

The Dixon Street improvement grant is currently open for applications that support the revitalisation of the historic heart of Chinatown through matched funding for works to shop and building frontages.

The Haymarket revitalisation strategy is a long-term plan to breathe new life into Haymarket and Chinatown. The multi-million-dollar vision sees key projects focus on activating and improving streets and public spaces, shopfronts, parks and lighting.

In December 2023, Council endorsed the Haymarket and Chinatown revitalisation strategy and Haymarket and Chinatown public domain plan after extensive consultation with the community.

Feature image: Neon Playground, Haymarket. Photo: City of Sydney, Katherine Griffiths.