Future signifies the (almost) end of the festival season and this year it bring a massive punch of a line up to help us celebrate what has been a great season.

Artists 8/10

With a line-up that boasted Prodigy, Avicci, Darude, Hilltop Hoods and Example, there was no way it wasn’t going to be a good day. In my mind, the stand out performers were Hilltop, Knife Party, and much to my surprise, Darude. Darude absolutely killed his set, working in old anthems and then smashing us with his new tunes too. Ending with Sandstorm (obviously), the packed out tent went wild.

What I was missing this year was the indie aspect of the festival. What I’ve always loved about Future is that you get a good mix of indie and dance. This year, Future seemed to have removed the indie bands that would have usually dominated the Future Live stage.

Layout 9/10 

Future is a massive festival and it’s set out across a really large area. This means that you may spend the entire day running from side to side. While this is a bit of a pain, it’s not too bad. The festival is set out really well and it works.

Vibe 9/10

Future brings the party vibe, and I love that. Everyone is chilled out and there to dance and have a good time. I didn’t see one fight or see anyone being thrown out, which is rare.

Ticket price 8/10

Tickets started at $150 and went up to $180 by the time they’d hit third release. This isn’t bad, especially for such a large scale festival.

Sunset club entry set you back $65 and the whole First Class VIP experience was roughly $320.

Chucking on a sunset club addition was totally worth it, but an extra $100 for 5 drink tickets and a viewing platform (included in the First Class VIP experience) was definitely not worth it.

VIP 7/10

I really like the VIP areas. This one was great; it gave you more drink and food options, heaps of seating and better toilets. The downside was that one of the two areas was kind of cut off, so you felt removed.

Food 5/10

The food was pretty standard and average, unless you were in one of the VIP areas.
Good festival food is hard to come by, and I understand that it’s probably not the main focus of the organisers, or the attendees, of the festival.

Music between sets 8/10 

This was great. They managed to capture the style of the performer who was finishing and the performer who was starting, which is often hard to do.

Sound quality 9/10

Working with such an expansive space, with so many stages, ensuring a high sound quality isn’t necessarily easy. These guys nailed this. There was no crossover of music and everything was really clear.

Other things to do 7/10 

Foam. Foam. Foam. All of the foam. While there’s no way I could ever jump into a foam pit at a festival, the people who did really seemed to love it. This year also boasted some rides which I can only imagine started off as a great idea for festival goers, but ended up a little sour.

Attendees and Outfits 7/10 

People need to stop wearing Indian head dresses. It’s offensive and they’re annoying. Apart from that, the fashion was pretty standard. Hats off to the group of guys dressed as bananas! There was, of course, a few who decided that they were buff enough to parade shirtless, but apart from that there weren’t too many faux pas.

I do suggest that festivals go back to the no nipples rules, though.

Future Music 77/100

With only one event before the season completely dies off, Future was a great way to begin my farewell to what has been a fantastic year of live music. They hit the nail with organisation, entry, layout and line up and I can’t wait to see what they present next year.

Alice Mod, Images: Graeme Watson