Saturday 20 June. The Sorrento Foreshore. A six-metre burning effigy, two live music stages, twelve food trucks, a lantern walk through the village streets, and free entry for everyone. The Sorrento Solstice Festival is back, and this year’s programme is the biggest the event has produced. Gates open at 2:00 PM. The night ends at 9:00 PM. And at 6:30 PM, Bernie burns.

The festival is a free, all-ages celebration of the winter solstice, open to the whole community and everyone making the trip down the Peninsula on the shortest day of the year. It is the kind of event Sorrento does better than anywhere: fire on the water, music in the cold air, and a foreshore full of people who came because something real is happening here.

Bernie burns at 6:30 PM.

Bernie is a six-metre effigy, built for this moment. Howard and Sons Pyrotechnics manage the ignition, with flame trusses framing the burn sequence against the darkening bay. The crowd gathers at the water’s edge, the fire goes up, and the cold air shifts. It is the reason people drive down from Melbourne on a June evening, and it earns the trip every time.

“A six-metre effigy. Fire on the foreshore. The whole village gathered at the water’s edge on the shortest day of the year. This is what Sorrento does.”

Seven hours of music, fire and community.

The afternoon opens at 2:00 PM with sound healing from Resonant Realms and a stunning lantern display by Evie Whittingslow of The Lanternist along the Stringers to Foreshore Pathway. Lachie Clue, who placed in the Top 24 of Australian Idol, takes the stage, and Bonnie Anderson hits the Main Stage for a live performance. The Silent Disco runs in a separate zone, with POHSS Studio running sessions for up to fifty people at a time.

The Lantern Walk moves through the village streets toward the foreshore, carrying the glow of The Lanternist’s display with it. Food trucks and licensed bar stations run through the evening: seafood, Greek, loaded potatoes, hawker skewers, and more.

Built for all ages.

Donna Sparx runs the Circus Playspace Kids Zone, roving circus performers move through the site, and Fantasy Faces is on from gates open. Sorrento Contemporary on Ocean Beach Road is open until 9:00 PM, with Emma Stenhouse’s solo exhibition upstairs, live painting by the Artisans Alley outside, and Emma’s weaving workshop at Sorrento Contemporary running from 2:00 to 4:00 PM at $25 per person. There is genuinely something happening for every age, all afternoon.

The Dawn Swim.

The weekend continues on Sunday morning with the Solstice Dawn Swim at Sorrento Front Beach, at first light on the shortest day. Numbers are limited and tickets are via Humanitix. After the fire of Saturday night, it is a different kind of cold and a fitting way to close the solstice weekend.