Melbourne Festival Director Jonathan Holloway Welcomes You To 2017's Festivities

We need to talk about Seventeen.

Actually, scratch that… We need to change the subject, take a break, indulge in some rejuvenating joy, and get some perspective.

Welcome to Melbourne Festival 2017. When we confirmed the program back in June, we wanted to create a month of the most exciting collaborations, most fiercely burning talent, and experiences to help us remember how amazing we can be when we really put our minds to it. We wanted to pull back for a wide shot, see the whole picture. We all feel even more committed to this three months later.

That is what inspired us. In the first Magnetic Fields visit for a decade, Stephin Merritt and the band perform 50 of his songs, one for each year of his life, 25 per night over two nights, in an Australian exclusive. Don't feel left out though - your own birthday can be the star of the show in the brilliant and immersive theatre party that is All My Friends Were There. I'd tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you (and that would screw up 2017 good and proper).

First breathy words lead (as always) to the complete destruction of the stage and an electro-music-theatre finale in the performance hurricane that is Germinal, before a wider lens yet trumps the whole thing, and the cinematic genius of Terrence Malik's Voyage Of Time is shown with a 100-piece live orchestra, charting the universe from Big Bang to Kim Jong-un. A good programming maxim is "Don't F*** It Up For The Kids", and the gloriously gothic refractory experience that is House Of Mirrors will walk the line, dividing fairground attraction and Lynchian dystopia.

Almost all "do you remember where you were when...?" moments come out of the blue, but I can say now, without any doubt, that in 20 years time the subject of this in Australia will be Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History Of Popular Music. It's long, like Glastonbury is long. It's all-consuming and constantly surprising, like that amazing New Year's Eve party you never went to. Taylor Mac sings 246 great songs over four nights with a delivery that swings from Bowie to Franklin (Aretha, not Benjamin), backed by a big band from New Orleans, Detroit and New York City. The show has more drama than Game Of Thrones, and is the perfect series of binge watches. All that, plus you get to hang with 800 incredibly attractive people in the Forum, and re-enact the American Civil War by throwing 4,000 ping pong balls at each other. If you can't meet the love of your year and get laid after that, we just can't help you.

The resulting time-crunch after so many long (loooong) shows means we need to simultaneously see our favourite titans of music (Jamie xx), visual art (Olafur Eliasson) and dance (Wayne McGregor) all at the same time, in the blistering phenomenon that is Tree Of Codes.

Finally, don't be a sook, come to our 19th-century North African takeover of the Forum as our Festival Lounge, open every night until late (Melbourne late, not Sydney late).

We want to give you a whole head-full of new memories, 19 days of different unforgettable experiences, a new 2017. Enjoy your international arts festival: go early, go hard and go often, indulge in what you love and discover some things that you don't.

November is for sleeping. October is for heroes. 

I'll see you there.

The Melbourne Festival runs in venues across the city from 4 — 22 Oct.