This festival started in Parramatta’s back lanes. Now it’s taken over the whole city

13 hours ago 2

When Parramatta launched a plan to host a series of pop-up events and cafes in its tiny laneways in 2012, attendance was low and the suburb was derided as “Paris-matta”.

Now, more than a decade later, the pop-up events have ballooned, taking over whole city streets and attracting hundreds of thousands of people. Attendance at Parramatta Lanes, Sydney’s largest street festival, has grown by more than 180 per cent in six years.

The food, music and culture festival has grown each year.

And there’s one reason it’s been so successful: TikTok. The City of Parramatta, which runs the event in-house, focuses on analysing viral food trends on the social media app and recruiting some of the world’s biggest influencers to the festival.

This year, two of the most sought-after stalls at the festival – running until Saturday night – have been western Sydney TikTok star Mahmoud Ismail (whose posts about potholes, culture and food reviews in the west attract hundreds of thousands of views) and New York-based General Ock, who boasts 5.6 million followers on the platform for his “chopped cheese” hamburger.

General Ock, real name Rahim Mohamed, is a Yemeni-American bodega chef who runs his family’s outlet and shot to fame in 2020 after he began posting about making his burgers “the Ocky way”.

Now, on the rooftop of the council’s Eat Street Car Park, which has been transformed into a four-level immersive experience, fans are prepared to wait in line for a special burger.

“Man, I can’t explain it. It’s so much fun, there’s natural life here, I love it,” said Mohamed, who came to Australia for the event and is staying in Parramatta. “It’s so beautiful. Trust me, I could see myself living here in Parramatta.”

If the New Yorker wants to move here because of the culture, Parramatta Lord Mayor Martin Zaiter reckons the council is on to something.

“When it started off 13 years ago, it started with 10 [or] 20,000 people. Last year we had over 200,000, and we’re expecting at least that this year,” Zaiter said.

“What those performers do is tap into their own followers and say, ‘Listen, you want to come and follow us, enjoy something different? Come to Parramatta Lanes.’ It’s us helping them build their brand, and also them helping us. If they didn’t believe in what Parramatta had to deliver, they wouldn’t come here.”

Nemz, a western Sydney DJ who fuses English and Arabic music and started his career at Parramatta’s Roxy Hotel, is expecting a large crowd when he performs on Saturday night. “You can see the council’s putting in a lot of effort here trying to activate things … it’s honestly such a vibe.”

Parramatta worker Sam Goodman said the festival should also include daytime markets to serve the workforce.

“I think it would be great if there was a lunchtime component,” she said. “There’s obviously a lot of people who work in Parramatta central, and a lot of these people would be out on lunch break.”