Perth’s Lord Mayor has proposed a massive three-day DJ festival for Perth that would rival the USA’s massive Coachella Festival or Britain’s legendary Glastonbury.
Following on from the success of British musician Fred Again’s appearance on the Perth foreshore last week, Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas has put forward the idea of the city hosting a multi-day DJ focused music festival.
Fred Again’s show filled Langley Park with 35,000 people, which is just a smidgen of the numbers that the festival’s Zempilas aspires to emulate attract.
Coachella which is held over two weekends sees 250,000 people heading into the Colorado desert. While Somerset’s Glastonbury Festival has a capacity of 210,000. Germany’s Airbeat Festival which focusses on electronic dance music also attracts 210,000 visitors over its four-day program.
“I’ve got no doubt we could get 100,000 people a day for three days at Langley Park, and then we’re starting to build an event which rivals the Grand Prix or the Melbourne Cup Carnival for attendance,” Zempilas said announcing his ambitious plan to create a massive dance party.
Speaking The West Australian Zempilas outlined his vision.
“Think the dance version of Coachella or Glastonbury down under – that’s what we can create here, but rather than with big, expensive bands, we can do it with DJ’s.” the Lord Mayor said in an exclusive announcement.
“It’s crystal-clear Perth needs a permanent, recurring, lock-it-in the calendar event we can call our own — and a dance festival can be it,” Zempilas said.
Earlier in the week in his newspaper column Zempilas shared his concern that Perth has lost out on some major events including the Gather round of the AFL competition which was held in South Australia over the weekend.
In recent months a number of high-profile music festivals have been cancelled including the long running Splendour in the Grass. Events promoters have cited a downturn in music festivals due to poor exchange rates for booking international acts, rising insurance costs and cost of living challenges cutting into ticket sales.
Zempilas says his plan could see the City of Perth working together with an event promoter to create the festival.
The City of Perth currently funds several major events that they organise including the Christmas Lights Trail, City of Lights shows, Christmas Nativity, and New Year’s celebrations.
The council also provides key funding to a range of arts organisations including Perth Festival, Fringe World, PrideFEST and the Perth Jazz Festival.
Zempilas says he’ll put his plan to his council colleagues later this month. The Lord Mayor was recently endorsed as the Liberal party’s candidate for the seat of Churchlands at the 2025 state election.
