The campus of UNSW was taken over by a massive party celebrating the German festival of beer, and the crowd’s followed suit. Yes, there were the takeaway bratwurst stands and the occasional guy wearing lederhosen… but what was missing? The ompha accordion music one might expect at Oktoberfest. Instead UNSW brought some of the hottest acts together, and catered to a wide range of individual musical tastes.

The party was broken down into three main sections, the RnB stage which was outdoors and had a very intimate atmosphere under the trees, the main stage which was in the massive Roundhouse building and came complete with high-tech video screens and a wide fronting DJ stage, and finally the Purple Sneakers stage. The party really started getting crazy around 7:30pm, with huge queues outside and crowds seemingly everywhere. The huge crowds didn’t help, with the Roundhouse male toilets seeming to suddenly stop having indoor plumbing around 9pm. Not the best sight! The crowds also made getting a drink something of a challenge. Some people waited up to 40 minutes to refill, and I felt especially bad for one guy I met named Nick who seemed unable to get anyone’s attention, so much so I had to tell the bartender to serve the poor guy. They definitely need to have more bartenders next year!

The Purple Sneakers stage had great sounds coming out all night, and it was a pleasure to see ‘alternative’ acts make its way into a mainstream event like this. The crowd seemed to enjoy it as well. Cadell played the main stage and by 9:30pm the Roundhouse was in full swing. Cadell played some great tracks and it really got the audience dancing. It was a pretty standard commercial sounding set with your regular array of dance songs, but the audience enjoyed it. It wasn’t really until 10:15pm, in preparation of the Bang Gang DJs, that things got hectic. The queue outside was massive with everyone flocking in to try and catch Bang Gang. If you got in, you would’ve experienced a great time. There were plenty of ‘oh I love this!’ moments for the crowd inside. They seemed to enjoy the crowd as well, and really played off the excitement. Most people said it was the highlight of the night.

The night did seem to lose some of the charm of its previous years, but regardless, it was great to see an event in Sydney that catered to a huge mix of tastes, attitudes, and styles. It’s a shame the party ended at midnight, but hey, I guess it was a school night. Not sure how many people would’ve made it to classes the next day though.