Popping up all over the place

St Jerome's - The Hotel, on Melbourne Central's rooftop

‘Blink and you’ll miss it’ seems to be the philosophy of many of Melbourne’s most popular eateries and experiences. Derelict spaces are reimagined, for a limited time only. And those in the know are rewarded for their nous.

In any given week around town, inactive spaces come alive with art, retail, food and wine at temporary locations feeding the city’s insatiable appetite for new discoveries. Although transient by nature, current pop-up spaces worthy of a visit include:

EAT

Queen Victoria Market (QVM) has an ongoing commitment to creating a new and contemporary vision for the Market’s future including the Community Kitchen initiative, as well as the ever-expanding reach of the QVM Night Market and the QVM Winter Night Market. The reinvigoration of this space ensures that this iconic institution will remain a seasonal – yet evergreen – fixture on the calendar.

Broadsheet Restaurant has taken Melbourne’s capricious and vivacious social calendar and turned it into one impossible social media zeitgeist, showcasing Melbourne’s world-leading chefs, restaurateurs, bartenders and baristas all under the one roof.

Eat A Scroll – after his incredible brioche scrolls were proving far too popular for his tiny little suburban cafe, chef Julian Chew decided to set up a pop-up scroll boutique on Smith Street in Collingwood. In addition to his own insatiable audience, he is now supplying a range of cafes while searching for a more permanent production site.

Madame Truffles – is Australia’s only French Black Truffle retailer. A pop-up in the most authentic sense, this seasonal setup runs from mid-June to August each year, in line with truffle season. This year, owner Bernadette Jenner has stepped her ambitions up, and in conjunction with The Space Agency is taking over a whole shop at the Queen Victoria Market.

Food Truck Park – brings Melbourne’s finest food trucks to numerous varied locations throughout the city with a number of food truck parks popping up temporarily in car parks and under utilized giving the vendors the opportunity and location to show off their culinary skills  while creating a dynamic and unique environment where patrons can enjoy varied food experiences, activities and events.

EXPERIENCE

MPavillion – launched in 2014 with a focus on public space and its relationship with contemporary culture. Every year for four years, a new architect will be commissioned to design a temporary pavilion for the Queen Victoria Gardens which will serve as an event hub, a meeting place and an invitation to experiment, bringing together creative collaborators to present a free, four-month program of talks, workshops and performances from October to February.

St Jerome’s – The Hotel – is Melbourne’s newest and most temporary luxury accommodation. Activating the unused rooftop at Melbourne Central, this glamping hotel enables guests to enjoy the ultimate urban getaway in the centre of the city.

Laneway Learnings - are fun, cheap classes put on for the community, by the community. Run by volunteers who have a specialty they want to share on anything and everything from hair braiding to neuroscience, these one hour lessons take place at various spaces in city city, Northcote and St Kilda.

Tramsessions - is a not-for-profit organisation that combines three of Melbourne’s biggest loves – live music, trams and pop-ups. Musicians randomly jam on-board city trams with the sole purpose of surprising, delighting and entertaining passengers, taking place on various tramlines, at various times every couple of weeks.

WATCH

Deja-View – is a boutique cinema experience that features a line-up of 1980s and ’90s classics, cult films and popcorn-flicks. The venue changes each year with the cinema previously activating an unused shop front space in 2013 and a couch warehouse in 2014. This years temporary location is still top secret.

Speakeasy Cinema – promotes itself as ‘a picture house with no fixed address’ and screens unusual, weird, overlooked and left-of-centre films in a variety of unlikely locations around Melbourne with experiences that have included a dog movie held for pooches in the forecourt of the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art.

Underground Cinema - asks guests to take a leap of faith at this fun, interactive cinema experience when they buy tickets to see an unnamed movie in a secret location. Each location is different and can vary from a primary school to an unused warehouse to a ballroom or airport hanger.  The location is only revealed 24 hours before the event and participants are rewarded with an extravagantly themed four-hour-plus show that includes live performances before the movie begins.

ORGANISATIONS

The Space Agency -  is a fully integrated activation agency devoted to transforming spaces into places. A short but action-packed history has seen this Melbourne company go from pop-up pioneed to place-maker creating new destinations that connect with communities. By offering all facets of the industry a pipeline into this rapidly burgeoning trade, it connects real estate agents, property management companies, and developers with food and beverage operators, retailers, and artists. At a time when Melbourne’s growing schedule of temporary retail concepts and space activations tries to keep pace with the audience’s desire for them, The Space Agency is mapping out the business of it – how to create, grow, and sustain a highly conceptual industry.

NeoMetro – have a long-standing commitment to supporting a range of not-for-profits, social enterprises, and community initiatives, they are one of the founding forces behind the property sector’s heavy involvement in Melbourne’s creative use of temporary spaces.