“Australia’s boutique festival darling… respect to Electric Gardens for booking quality acts.” – InTheMix.com
“The best festival I’ve been to in the last six years in Sydney… Amazing music, at a great location, and attracted a fantastically diverse and friendly crowd.” – SydneyPartyPeople.com
“Electric Gardens harked back to the lost era of Summadayze – festival-ling alfresco under January sunbeams. It attracted the “young and up for it” punters in droves, with EG’s healthy quota of long-time dance legend acts bringing the older techno heads out of retirement, too…a gloriously mixed up crowd that works well.” – Pulse Radio
“Electric Gardens will provide the most memorable occasion of your whole summer….the event continues to attract an eclectic crowd whose sole goal is to enjoy themselves to live performances of dance music’s finest.” – The Plus Ones
After boutique music festival Electric Gardens’ 2016 debut, where it was “raved about by everyone who experienced it” (IntheMix) and an equally-as-successful sophomore event in 2017 – where the event completely sold-out Centennial Park in Sydney and cemented its longevity – Electric Gardens are thrilled to reveal their first announcement of national dates and venues (and open selected pre-sales) for their hugely anticipated 2018 event (with further States still to be announced). Electric Gardens are also happy to share that 2018 will be their biggest endeavour yet, with more artists on their line-up than ever before, with four themed stages at the Sydney flagship event. Co-director Damian Gelle says “Our Electric Gardens family couldn’t be more excited about the festival’s third appearance. It has been a whirlwind adventure, and a lot of hard work to get just this far – but we are confident that the calibre of acts we have locked for 2018 will make this Electric Gardens’ defining year.”
As a festival, Electric Gardens is widely regarded by electronic music fans, thanks to the directors’ careful curation skills when it comes to their line-up. Electric Gardens channels the park-based electronica popularised by Parklife, Summadayze, and Listen Out, but goes one step further by steering clear of trend-dependent acts, and instead inviting the absolute godfathers of electronic music to step up to the plates – seasoned artists that have spent decades entertaining crowds, and know exactly how to make them tick. Fans can expect the forthcoming artist announcement to contain a major line-up of the type of global legends we’ve come to expect of Electric Gardens’ programming – in previous years, gracing the mainstage have been the likes of John Digweed, James Zabiela, Basement Jaxx, Sasha, Jamie Jones, Stacey Pullen, and Eric Prydz as Cirez D (who, infamously, made the rare trip to Oz just for Electric Gardens – despite his much noted fear of flying). Gelle says to expect “a mix of Ibiza and the European festival circuit – featuring artists that make rare visits to Australia.”
A ticket to Electric Gardens also provides the key to experience sets from many leading lights in the world of contemporary underground tech, house and electronic artists – all of whom are allocated generous set time lengths by the Electric Gardens team, to perform to their fullest abilities, and craft a quality music journey – the full, European-style clubbing experience that Australian fans are treated to so rarely, and crave so dearly.
Excitingly, the 2018 event will also see a significant expansion of local artists, with Electric Gardens once again teaming up with the best electronic collectives, media platforms, and brands for a truly collaborative curational effort that goes to the heart of dance music’s sense of togetherness. Also for the first time, the popular VIP section run by the Return to Rio crew will expand to be a general public offering, the VIP area will take up a newly-constructed space facing the main stage, and the festivals will offer educational areas, where interested punters can learn from pro’s the basics of mixing electronic music.
Electric Gardens will begin its 2018 journey on January 19 out West at Red Hill Auditorium – a stunning natural amphitheater out in the Perth bush, curtained by huge gum trees, with views of the Perth city skyline, and as night falls, a ceiling of stars. The event then ring’s Brisbane’s bell at The Marquee on January 25th – conveniently located just five minutes from the Fortitude Valley – an undercover area, Marquee’s a safe option for Brisbanites in January during Queensland’s notorious storm season. January 27th will see the festival close its run at its home – the iconic Centennial Park in Sydney, a lush, inner-city parkland with great sound level allowances. Each arena will feature four uniquely themed stages with the high-tech production previously displayed at each event.
The Electric Gardens story
Two Aussie backpackers and a backyard bash… that morphed into London’s biggest electronic music festival.
Dance-music heads from way back, over a decade ago, Perth’s Damian Gelle and Sydney’s Anton Marmot backpacked to the UK in search of good times – as is the rite of passage for many Aussies. Whilst there in 2001, the entrepreneurial twosome decided to throw a backyard party in Walthamstow, inviting a bunch of their DJ mates to play and charging a small cover. A few years later in 2004, that backyard party evolved into the South West Four festival, which to this day still attracts 70,000 people sprawling over the Clapham Common on the August Bank Holiday.
After two decades in London, Gelle and Marmot returned to Bondi, and – equipped with the ultimate in hands-on festival experience and O/S booking connections (and the added benefit of sunshine skies) – launched Electric Gardens – a festival already well on its way to the huge heights of its UK predecessor. “Electric Gardens brings to Australia the underground party vibes we discovered in Ibiza and across Europe,” says director Gelle, “Our festival at Centennial Park attracts a melting pot of not just Australians, but more than 20 nationalities of clued-up Sydneysiders that love their electronic music.” From humble beginnings, to heroes of the global house scene – this, is the Electric Gardens story.
ELECTRIC GARDENS – 2018 DATES & VENUES
Jan 19th, Red Hill Auditorium, Perth
Jan 25th, The Marquee, Brisbane
Jan 27th, Centennial Park, Sydney
Further dates, venues and artists to be announced in coming weeks.