From the mouth of Max Stettner, co-Director of Dragon Dreaming…
“The Dragon Dreaming Festival, ACT’s longest-running, annual underground multi-stage electronic and live band festival, is a unique experience. Since 2008, we’ve delivered epic multi-day camping festivals, hosting cutting-edge underground international and domestic music, performance, culture, and visual and installation art across multiple fully immersive spaces.
In 2008, the Dragon Dreaming Festival was born in Cowan Forest, ACT, where the event was more doof than festival. After out-growing the Cowan Forest site in 2014, DDF searched for a bigger home for our growing community. It soon became clear that the ACT could not provide a site sizable enough to sustain our patrons whilst remaining consistently loud.
We not only found a new home, we found paradise. Since 2014, the shores of Burrinjuck Lake (50 minutes from Canberra) and the rolling hills surrounding Wee Jasper have been our forever home. The Wee Jasper community and Yass Valley have embraced the festival with open arms, and survey data show that the festival annually contributes around one million dollars to the region’s economy.
Once moving to Wee Jasper, the multi-stage doof was then able to grow to host up to 4500 festival goers. And importantly, we, Dragon Dreaming, were able to evolve into a unique festival experience where the elaborate immersive spaces are not just the stages but include:
- art galleries
- roving and staged performances
- knowledge and movement workshop spaces
- healing/massage space
- cinema
- kids space
- lake swims
- tree planting
- dedicated market area hosting tasty cuisine from around the planet
- great coffee
- over 30 clothing and jewellery stalls
- massive 6m high interactive sculptures
- full volume 24-hour sound on tuned systems with cutting-edge projection mapping, lighting and lasers.
It’s a choose-your-own-adventure scenario with top-level medical, lifeguard and harm reduction support.
The 2024 Dragon Dreaming Festival is the next step in creating a peak festival experience for you and your mob. Our music team has put together our most cutting-edge line-ups of international and domestic – techno, house, minimal, D&B, broken beat, psytrance, progressive, funk, dub, jazz, and blues line-ups to date.
It has been a tough run for festivals throughout Australia over the past seven years, with COVID and draconian government policies, and sadly, we have seen the demise of many underground and mainstream events alike. Dragon Dreaming has traversed the rocky road with the added costs related to compliance, and the 2024 event is tracking well for a reduced capacity sell-out. We recommend buying your tickets soon.”
“As a not-for-profit, the Dragon Dreaming Festival is deeply committed to fostering a strong community for artists, performers, educators, and activists.
“Our mission is to provide a platform for these individuals to showcase their talents and share their knowledge without any financial expectation by us, making everyone feel valued and part of something bigger.” – Natalie Barnes
Dragon Dreaming is on 4-7 October 2024 at Lake Burrinjuck, Wee Japser ,NSW. Get your tickets and camping packages now via the Dragon Dreaming website!
