Summer Fridays in the East End

Summer Friday’s in the East End is a very cute experience. As well as Union Street being somewhat blocked off with street vendors, including the amazing Burger Theory crew, the Adelaide City Council has set up a free outdoor movie theatre.
In front of the Everfresh artwork on Union Street there’s both scaffolded spectator seating and AstroTurf for you to picnic upon. With so many great eateries in the area, many people had purchased something in Rundle Street and squirreled it on over to the AstroTurf. My friend and I had ourselves gone and got gelati from nearby Gelatissimo to look up at the projected mug of Tom Hanks in «Big» with. It wasn’t a choc top but it was just as good.
Across the road on the corner of Vaughan Place was a street performer on the piano, entertaining the outdoor patrons of The Exeter.
Things seemed to wrap up just after Tom Hanks turned back into a 13 year old at about 10pm. I’ll definitely head down to check out what the council has in store another Friday until this wraps up in February.

As of last Friday, the East End Coordination Group will be organising Summer Fridays In the East End. The title sounds like a statement of current fact — what do you mean? Friday is already happening in Summer on Rundle St. No wait. It isn’t. We’re all getting pissed at the Exeter, but no-​one is hanging out in the street, playing table tennis and eating Burger Theory. That’d be nice on a Friday afternoon in the sun, right? So anyway, Summer Fridays in the East End is a weekly event during December and January, involving shutting down the street, watching outdoor cinema, picking between the best mobile food stalls, being entertained by buskers and indulging in a little woozy sun-​stroke influenced table-​tennis.
I went along last Friday night to check out the action, but it was relatively quiet. I also arrived a little late — Burger Theory had already sold out and perhaps everyone was moving on. There was plenty of people at the Exeter though… Being allowed to drink on the street would be a real boon, but I imagine this would be pretty damn hard to wrangle. There was an outdoor cinema setup too, which was pretty cool, except that the volume was way too low, so no one was watching. These kind of things take a little while to gain momentum — and I hope Summer Fridays in the East End lives through it’s pimply stage.