The Coca-Cola Billboard in Kings Cross, Sydney, usually referred to by Sydneysiders simply as "The Coca-Cola Sign" or "The Coke Sign", is an advertising billboard erected in 1974 by the Coca-Cola Company. It is more often regarded as an iconic landmark than as an advertisement. Commercially, it is considered to be the premier billboard in Sydney and is the largest billboard in the Southern Hemisphere. It is commonly, though incorrectly, assumed to be heritage-listed. [1]
The Coca-Cola sign is located above the intersection of William Street and Darlinghurst Road and is attached to the Zenith Residences, formerly the Millenium Hotel and Kingsgate Hotel. The sign is often referred to as The Gateway to the Cross, because it is prominently visible from all of William Street, which is the principal road leading to Kings Cross from the Sydney CBD. One also must pass directly in front of the sign when entering Kings Cross from either William Street or Darlinghurst Road, the two main access roads. The billboard is made up of two parts: on the right, the famous red and white neon sign, and on the left the more modern, flex-faced sign. In total the sign is 41 metres in length and 13 metres in height, with the right sign being slightly larger at 21 metres in length.
The red and white neon sign is made up of eighty-eight vertical bars of red tubing. It also has 800 fluorescent lamps that are concealed behind reflectors that allow the billboard to project thirteen different patterns. The left part of the billboard is a flex-face style sign and is internally illuminated by approximately 1,000 fluorescent lamps. On 18 April 2008 Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA, the Australian Coca-Cola licensee) purchased the iconic sign. The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) had leased the sign since it was built in 1976. CCA and TCCC agreed to maintain the then-existing leasing arrangements.
The red and white neon billboard was erected in 1974 [2] in its current location whilst the left side of the billboard was a later addition in 1990. In 2004 the billboard for the first time in thirty years advertised a product other than Coca-Cola, when the left side of the board advertised the release of Halo 2 . [3]
On 31 March 2007 the lights on the billboard were intentionally switched off for the first time, in correlation with the inaugural Earth Hour. [4]
On 23 April 2008, four activists unfurled a banner over the billboard in protest of Coke's sponsorship of the Olympic torch relay at Kings Cross. The banner read: "Enjoy Compassion. Always Tibet. CHINA – TALK TO THE DALAI LAMA". All four activists were arrested. [5]
In 2015, the Coke sign was removed to make way for an upgraded Coke sign. The lettering was auctioned off, raising $100,700 for the Wayside Chapel, [6] but the hyphen between the words was given away via a Facebook contest, and now resides in Lithgow, NSW, as part of a Christmas light display. [7] The new Coca-Cola sign was officially turned on, on 15 September 2016, and uses a lot less power. It is the single largest controllable LED sign in the Southern Hemisphere and can change colour. [8]
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day. Coca-Cola ranked No. 87 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Based on Interbrand's "best global brand" study of 2020, Coca-Cola was the world's sixth most valuable brand.
"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" is a pop song that originated as "True Love and Apple Pie", by British hit songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, and sung by Susan Shirley.
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster. It was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with Piccadilly. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction.
Darlinghurst is an inner-city suburb in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Darlinghurst is located immediately east of the Sydney central business district (CBD) and Hyde Park, within the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is often colloquially referred to as "Darlo".
Potts Point is a small and densely populated suburb in inner-city Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Potts Point is located 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney.
Kings Cross is an inner-eastern locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is bounded by the suburbs of Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay and Darlinghurst.
Coca-Cola Amatil Limited (CCA) was an Australian bottler of non-alcoholic beverages that existed from 1904 to 2021, when it merged with Coca-Cola European Partners to form Coca-Cola Europacific Partners. It was one of the largest bottlers of non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages in the Asia-Pacific region and one of the world's five major Coca-Cola bottlers. CCA operated in six countries—Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Samoa. The company also bottled beer and coffee.
Paddington is an upscale Eastern Suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Located 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east of the Sydney central business district, Paddington lies across two local government areas. The portion south of Oxford Street lies within the City of Sydney, while the portion north of Oxford Street lies within the Municipality of Woollahra. It is often colloquially referred to as "Paddo".
Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode at each end, filled with one of a number of gases at low pressure. A high potential of several thousand volts applied to the electrodes ionizes the gas in the tube, causing it to emit colored light. The color of the light depends on the gas in the tube. Neon lights were named for neon, a noble gas which gives off a popular orange light, but other gases and chemicals called phosphors are used to produce other colors, such as hydrogen (purple-red), helium, carbon dioxide (white), and mercury (blue). Neon tubes can be fabricated in curving artistic shapes, to form letters or pictures. They are mainly used to make dramatic, multicolored glowing signage for advertising, called neon signs, which were popular from the 1920s to 1960s and again in the 1980s.
Rushcutters Bay is a harbourside inner-east suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney.
William Street is a 1.4-kilometre-long (0.87 mi) major thoroughfare in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The street was named in honour of king William IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland upon its opening in 1834.
The City of Sydney Library network consists of nine branch libraries and two 'library links', located in Australia within the City of Sydney Council administrational area.
Bayswater Road is a 700-metre-long (2,300 ft) minor street in the Kings Cross district of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Tourism in Sydney, forms an important part of the city's economy. The city received 12 million domestic visitors and 4.1 million international visitors in year ending June 2019. The most famous attractions include the Sydney Opera House, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Other attractions include the Sydney Mardi Gras, Royal Botanical Gardens, Luna Park, the beaches and Sydney Tower.
The Coca-Cola sign is an electro-kinetic sculpture on the Two Times Square building in Times Square, Manhattan, New York City. The current sign, installed in 2017, is 68 feet (21 m) tall and 42 feet (13 m) wide, and is the latest in a line of Coca-Cola Times Square signs dating back to 1920.
Victoria Street is a suburban street located in the inner eastern suburbs of Sydney, in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. From south to north, Victoria Street goes through the suburbs of Darlinghurst, Potts Point and the locality of Kings Cross. It is 1.6 kilometres (0.99 mi) in length. In the section in Darlinghurst, the street is one-way, from north to south only.
The Downunder Hostel Fire was a lethal fire on 17 September 1989, set shortly before 5:00 am in a backpackers hostel on Darlinghurst Road in the Kings Cross area of Sydney, Australia. The fire was the fifth most deadly disaster in Australia in 1989.
Oakleigh is a heritage-listed residence and former boarding house at 18 Ward Avenue in the inner city Sydney suburb of Potts Point in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was built c. 1880 on the former estate of the now-demolished Goderich Lodge. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Charles Henry Hoskins (1851-1926) was an Australian industrialist, who was significant in the development of the iron and steel industry in Australia.
Kings Cross Centre is a shopping centre in Kings Cross, a locality in the inner-city suburb of Potts Point. It is located underneath the Coca-Cola billboard and Zenith residential apartments.