Ripple Narratives
Inside the event that turned a Northern Beaches brewery into a wild weekend of First Nations cultural events.
On the last weekend of June 2025, First Nations agency Awesome Black partnered with 7th Day Brewery in Brookvale for a three-day creative takeover of the venue—also known as the Black Winter Block Party. The free multi-day, festival-style program incorporated a mix of live performances, visual art installations, public workshops, food and drink collaborations and artist-led storytelling moments.
The event was a collaboration between Awesome Black, Brookvale Arts District (BAD) and 7th Day Brewery and was proudly supported by the Office of the 24-Hour Economy Commissioner.
The team that built the Block Party
Brookvale Arts District is a collective of local businesses who have developed a unique brand and platform for telling the story of the area. This process was supported by the Office of the 24-Hour Economy Commissioner’s Uptown District Acceleration Program. Together, these businesses have transformed the former industrial area into a bustling creative precinct on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. 7th Day Brewery is one of these businesses, and prides itself on both creating excellent beers and getting involved with the local community.
Awesome Black, who collaborated with 7th Day Brewery and BAD to host the event, is a First Nations creative agency, production studio and creative space dedicated to reshaping contemporary culture through a First Nations lens. Awesome Black has previously worked with the Office of the 24-Hour Economy Commissioner, including at Yours & Owls festival and Inner West Country Fest, helping the Office to embed First Nation’s voices across NSW’s nightlife.
Inside the event
The Block Party centred around First Nations cultural experiences, including nightly headline sets from First Nations musicians and creative workshops where patrons could enjoy the brewery’s food and beverage offerings (which had been tailor-made for the event) while weaving and painting alongside First Nations facilitators.
First Nations business Bush to Bowl collaborated with 7th Day to provide guests with native-infused beers and margarita salts to enjoy alongside workshops on native food knowledge and prep. A special edition Awesome Black beer was also launched exclusively at the event, with one dollar from every sale going towards the ELLA Foundation, which offers scholarships and mentorships to aspiring First Nations dancers, and the Awesome Black Foundation, which provides support and resources to First Nations Creatives.
Finally, the party featured a new visual art series made up of large-scale posters with interactive augmented reality elements. These posters were produced by First Nations artists Jade Goodwin, Jeswri, Dylan Finney and K-Rae (Kimberly Enwright).
Ripple Narratives
The results
Awesome Black’s Founder and Executive Director, Travis De Vries, was “absolutely blown away” by the diverse and enthusiastic audiences who attended the event.
“The artists we worked with are absolute stars and brought their energy to a crowd that didn't quite know what to expect either—I think this worked and everyone who came definitely had a great time,” said De Vries.
This sentiment was echoed by the General Manager of 7th Day Brewery, Joel Ridzuan.
“We had an epic turn out all weekend, fantastic stories shared and great new relationships made,” said Ridzuan.
“Shout out to Travis for curating such an epic weekend and just being the most wholesome, talented and amazing dude to collaborate with. There were many hugs, many tears and many dance floor boogies on what will go down as one of the most memorabe and meaningful weekends down here at 7th Day Brewery.”
The collaboration was a major commercial success, and the 7th Day taproom delivered 25% growth compared with the same weekend in the previous year.
Ridzuan also hinted that, following the success of the Black Winter Block Party, he and De Vries would be collaborating on another event at 7th Day in the near future. Stay tuned.
Learn more
To learn more, visit the Awesome Black website.
Visit the 7th Day Brewery website to see what's on next.
To discover how the 24-Hour Economy Strategy is working towards embedding First Nations storytelling in the night-time economy, explore our strategy.