11 months of the year, drinking in Hyde Park or dancing in the fountain at 4am could get you arrested. For one month of the year, a classy big wooden tent rocks up in Sydney, and you feel like you're drinking in a 19th century Parisian cabaret lounge - and all is acceptable.

The Spiegeltent is a heritage-listed, world-class performance art and music venue, an antique tent made of ornate wood and mirrors, programmed with exciting and cutting-edge performance arts and music events. To the shock of all of us, Sydneysiders emerge from the darkened pubs of Newtown and the Rocks in sold-out numbers.

The Spiegelten comes from some foreign country - who cares which one, it doesn't matter, we all know it belongs in Sydney and should stay here.

We plonk it down in the middle of Hyde Park for the duration of the Sydney festival, and it's like it never left. Programmed with 3-4 shows every night, including a (shock horror) very late and unSydney-like midnight jazz/latin/funk gig. And in a true sign of egalatarianism, Hollywood royalty is forced to sit down with the plebs in the round (Keith and Nicole distracted me - and no, it wasn't a media launch or celebrity preview, it was just a regular Thursday night session.) Even current American TV darling Rose Byrne had to queue up like the rest of us. And if you can't afford tickets to a show, you're welcome sit out in the balmy Sydney summer night and have a $7 beer in the multinational-company branded garden and overhear the excited crowds inside.

So this leads us to ask, why doesn't Sydney just build a spiegeltent and have world class acts in it all year round? Because in typical Sydney style, it would be a ridiculously overpriced public-private partnership, be built of stainless steel and be fourteen stories high.

Above: Sydney crunk/jazz/gypsy group Waiting For Guinness rock the Spiegeltent to a packed crowd on Australia Day this year.