The Melbourne International Design Festival, Strength in Numbers, presented by the National Design Centre is about to begin. Running for a whole 10 days, from 17-27 of July, you will find yourself so immersed in the beauty of design, you will have enough inspiration to last you the entire year. The festival will include, special guest speakers, competitions, exhibitions and of course the not to be missed Design Market. This is one program you have to take a squiz at. Below is a sneak peek at one of the finalists of the 4th Australian Poster Annual Competition. Pic: Robert Bacchetto’s ‘Strength Formed by Numbers‘

As you may be well aware, Melbourne Fringe Festival is on the way and this year Zoetrope is along for the ride. In the mood for a bit of a cackle and a hoot? Then hop along to Festival Club – Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall (corner Queensberry & Errol Streets, North Melbourne). For $5 your mind and body will take a ride on the quirky and slightly bizarre, yet utterly hilarious train of physical theatre production that is Zoetrope. Times and dates scatter from here to there – 26th to 27th September, 2nd to 4th October, 9th to 11th October. Performances will tumble and turn every 20 minutes from 7pm. Bookings can be made online at Melbourne Fringe. (A nice place to spend some play time checking out the entire fringe program.)

Hoo boy. I went up a mountain. I rocked. And now I’ve come back down. Australia’s first All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP) festival, curated by the lovely Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Mt Buller, really couldn’t have gone any better in this punter’s humble opinion. On the non-music side: a chance to go to a festival and sleep in a real bed and have real hot showers every night and a cooked breakfast every morning – very civilised. And on the rocking out front: Nick Cave is clearly a god. Let’s just not even bother debating that. As are his friends the Dirty Three and the Saints. Looking round the crowd as those three bands played, there were a lot of people having some kind of religious experience. Or headbanging. Possibly both. Outside the circle of deities, Japanese girl band Afrirampo put on an awesome show (guitarist jumps on drummer, both pretend to be Nick Cave then advocate breast-feeding in broken English) while Robert Forster brought the jangly, sunshiney rock and pulled out a few old Go-Betweens numbers to swooning appreciation. But the prize for inspiring the most new musical crushes must go to Sydney band Bridezilla, and especially their foxy violinist Daisy Tulley (pictured below), who gave one of the performances of the festival and seriously knows how to cut a rug with that fiddle. Good grief woman, you’re only 17! How much cooler can you get? Anyhoo, Sydney and Brisbane – your time for ATP is coming soon. Gird your loins. It’s pretty friggin special.

PS – On a completely selfish note, I lost my backpack in the carpark on the way home. If anyone found a black and grey check knapsack on Mount Buller Sunday morning, it has my favourite dress in it and I would gladly pay a finders fee. Get in touch!

The Middle East are giving away their new single on the Golden Plains website - for free! It's from their upcoming debut album, I Want That You Are Always Happy, coming  out on April 8th. The song, 'Black Death 1349', will coo you in their typically beautiful, banjoed style. Go forth and legally download! (And you can nab some Golden Plains tickets while you're there too, if you want).

For one of the few times in Golden Plains' five year history, the music festival was not re-dubbed 'Golden Rains'. Sunny 28 degree days allowed acts like Joanna Newsom and Best Coast to be enjoyed sans woolly jumper, and with a water bottle full of cider on hand. The Hold Steady rocked out in typical band-geek style, and we wanted to know what shampoo Wavves used, as their hair was majestically floating around like an underwater sea anemone in the warm evening breeze. Jamie Lidell and The Besnard Lakes pulled out some surprise favourite acts, and local artists The Graveyard Train and World's End Press held their own against the big headliners such as Belle and Sebastian. Best dressed band went to Architecture in Helsinki, who donned three piece white suites with silver cummerbunds and pale blue sequined neck ties. Respect. However, some of the best memories were left to the punters: camping next to someone with a ping pong table and a umpire chair made out of milk crates was a plus, as was the girl walking around in a giant lycra taco suit. Only at Golden Plains. Photos by Mia Mala McDonald.

Meredith is out of its teens and into its adult years. That doesn't mean that it has grown old, however. Our favourite festival is still as fresh-faced, youthful and vivacious as ever, and we're sure that you agree from the below gallery. Who doesn't love a little bit of music and ice-cream filled debauchery? Now, let's start planning their 21st speeches! Click here for the full gallery. Photos by Georgia Frances King.

So, a little while back, we promised you all a bit of news about the upcoming Sugar Mountain music and arts festival happening in Melbourne this April… Well, hip hip hooray, the line up has just been announced, and let's just say, it's pretty damn classy. Acts like Yellowfever, The Twerps, Otouto, Virgo Four, Collarbones and Rat vs Possum will be tickling your eardrums while an A-Grade flock of visual artists will be running amuck around town. Works by Alex Kopps, Beci Orpin, Kill Pixie, Charlie Callahan, Mel Kadel, Kelsey Brookes and Stefan Marx (to name but a few) will be on display as well as a live painting performance by (gasp) Thomas Campbell. Yes, we are beyond excited.

Sydney's block parties may not be quite the same as those in New York in the 80s, but hey, they're still pretty good. The Surry Hills Festival is back this year, taking place in the perfect sunny weather tomorrow, Saturday April 9th. There will be live music from the likes of Jinja Safari and Fishing, market stalls, sausage sizzles, and a rad sculpture project which you interact with using your mobile phone by (un)seen. For more details for the day's proceedings, check out their website or facebook.