Affectionately known as the “Ekka” (shortened form of the original name “Brisbane Exhibition”), the agricultural show is Queensland’s largest and most popular event with over 600,000+ people making their way down to the RNA Showgrounds in Bowen Hills over 10 days to get amongst the fun which includes agricultural displays, woodchopping competitions, animal parades, equestrian events and the ever-popular “sideshow alley” bursting at the seams with rides for all ages.

While I don’t think I’ll make the trip inside the gates this year, I did pop down onto Bowen Bridge Road after work this evening, from where you can get a pretty good view of sideshow alley and catch a glimpse of the nightly fireworks display. Here’s just a few of the images I captured:

The 2011 Ekka runs for another 4 days, finishing on Saturday night, and includes the always popular “People’s Day”, a Queensland Public Holiday, this coming Wednesday.

Coinciding with the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics 1 year anniversary celebrations, the colourful, vibrant event this year consisted of 18 locations featuring an array of light art installations and interactive displays on view for the past two nights.

With $500 worth of prizes up for grabs in an associated Flickr photography contest, I battled the less than desirable weather conditions to come up with the following shots of what I considered to be the best of the displays. I’m undecided at this point as to whether or not I’m going to enter any of them into the contest, but I’ve got until March 6th to decide.

Data Queue

By Nathan Whitford & Konstantinos Mavromichalis – Lines of LEDs that can respond to their environment and the presence of people. This installation translates the movement of people into colourful animated light patterns. Standing in line has never been so much fun.

Light Cosmos

By Victor S. Quezada – This installation creates a fusion of light and materials.

Revolv-a-lution

A group collaboration with general direction by Benjamin Feagin Jr. – Scheduled live artistic performances, interactive components and new media art works will dazzle and amaze.

Twitterfall Wall

By Bradley Shende – Interactive real time tagged discussion – projected as cascading tweets onto a three story brick wall.

Louver Towers

By Philip W. Guhl – Video wall of stunning visual effects using bitmapped artwork and music.

Flexi-Flex

By Philip W. Guhl – A flexible, translucent, modular LED panel providing full motion video and lighting capabilities both indoors and outdoors.

Fiction Facades

By Nathan Whitford & Konstantinos Mavromichalis – Never judge a building by its facade; a building projection that explores the relationship between the facade of a building and its interior. This installation reveals and creates stories.

Kinetic Floating Pixels

By Shaun Mavronicolas & Miles Thorogood – This interactive, kinetic light installation made up of an array of moving helium balloons merge the physical and virtual worlds in a fun and playful installation. Become the avatar and create you own experience.

But anyway, here’s what I found.

If it’s at all possible, front man Dougie and his band consisting of Jonathon, Toby & Lorenzo put on a far more polished performance than what I witnessed back in June. And if you read my glowing post from that concert, you’d be forgiven for wondering how it could get any better??

The defining factor for me last night was the crowd. Heavily littered with adoring Aussie fans, I think the mood of the place was probably best described by my compadre for the night, Katie, who screamed at one point, “Wow, this crowd is AMPED!” She wasn’t kidding, there was an energy in the place that really set the tone for a great performance and the boys seemed to feed off it.

The setlist didn’t seem to vary greatly from the show back in June (I’ll post it once I can find an accurately prepared and verified version), but that didn’t matter one iota. As Katie (@kat_trains) tweeted during the performance:

How amazing does it feel when the crowd knows EVERY word of EVERY song? Happening right now at The Commodore. #Vancouver CC: @TheTemperTrap

To give you a bit of a taste of the amazing night, here’s a video of the band’s extended performance of their hit “Sweet Disposition”, that was posted on YouTube by “The Georgia Straight” a popular Vancouver Street newspaper.

Following are a quick series of shots I snapped last night. Wasn’t the best of nights behind the camera for me (I was having FAR too much fun to be taking pics), but they should give you an idea of how it all played out nonetheless!