Ultraworld. ULTRA-woooorld. I found myself repeating this word over and over in the week leading up to last weekend’s dance festival with varying intonations, emphasising either the ‘ultra’ part and/or drawing out the ‘world’ part. It sounded formidable.

I was excited though. Part of what was so ultra about Ultraworld was its ultra huge lineup of acts and DJs (about 40) spread across five different arenas and rooms including the number one ultra DJ himself mister Paul van Dyk (his name is still ringing in my ears). But for me the biggest drawing card was the Swedish DJ and one of the most influential techno producers today Adam Beyer. With his Drumcode record label, Beyer has captured a driving, mesmeric techno sound that slotted in just nicely between the hard dance and trance ends of this night.

I had been coveting a ticket to Ultraworld ever since I learnt that Beyer was going to feature, many months ago now, and I must confess I was a little disappointed that his set was only for an hour and a half. This is one of the problems with having so many big acts at the one event: none of them seem to have enough time to really put on a show. Most of them were limited to one or one and a half hours, except for our main man Paul, who was scheduled for two hours, but more on that later. Beyer didn’t disappoint though. The set was tightly integrated and full of energy, with accumulating, majestic arcs of thumping beats piling up over each other until one broke free of the rest and they would all fall back down upon that single, relentless beat, before building up again. Great techno that you can really bust a move to and the crowd got swept up into the new, pared back, beat-driven tone that Beyer set for the night.

You could have been an aficionado of a number of different niche areas in electronic music and have been as equally eager for a ticket to this event as I was. The hard dance enthusiasts were very well catered for with Walt Jenssen and Yoji Biomehanika dishing up the requisite thumping madness for the fans. There were some superlative psytrance acts, the Techno Temple went off all night long and if trance was your thing then you could seek refuge in the Interview room before emerging for the Godzilla of Dance for his dawn set. Despite this broad spectrum of tastes the whole thing gelled together nicely. I remember doing a tour of duty at around 3am, poking my head into all the various rooms and taking up a position in the different arenas to get a sense of the whole, fragmented picture. To my great satisfaction I found that the whole place was going off. Every room, every arena, was full of people, great music and a party time vibe.

So much for the general ambiance but there are some more particular credits to make. I just missed Joel Mull’s main arena set earlier that evening but caught him in the Techno Temple after Beyer had finished and was very impressed. For me it was one of the highlights of the night: slightly more off beat than most techno, which, lets be honest, can at times be too straight four to the floor, Mull’s beats seemed to trip over before replacing each other in a fashion that had the dance floor moving. I’d like to single out John ‘00’ Fleming for particular commendation here though. He played in the Tribedelic arena which, while not the largest space on the night I think suited him better and, for sure, his stuff is pretty straight, driving beats, but the guy had this stupid grin on his face every time something particularly dark or twisted or just plain cool popped out of the speakers which had me cracking up. He was a good performer on the stage because you could tell he was just loving it – loving the music, the party and the fact that he gets to make a living out of this sort of thing.

Which brings me to 4am and the starting time for the van Dyk-meister’s much anticipated dawn set. I wandered down to the main arena where Bart Claessens was blasting out the beats, holding court amidst the fiery red lights and billowing mist from the smoke machine. Lasers were shooting all over the place and there was an air of expectation. This air of expectation was sustained for some considerable time after the 4am changeover, until 5am in fact, when Paul van Dyk finally arrived, fresh off his flight from Sydney where he had been playing at Transmission. He turned on a pretty standard set I have to say, as standard as the top DJs in the world ever gets, but I had found myself a comfortable couch to sit in on the side of the main arena and personally I find trance a good way to wind down the evening, so I was all ears. Which is why I was so surprised when at around 6.15am, yes folks only an hour and fifteen minutes later, he finished his set somewhat abruptly and left the stage. What? It seems that what he had lost in arriving late he made up for in leaving early! Who knows what the real reasons were but this was undoubtedly a disappointment for many people.

On the subject of the people, I found the crowd this night to be fantastic and notably so. It was a very friendly crowd, not too messy, and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Security was pretty beefed up this night, with sniffer dogs doing the rounds earlier on in the evening and a strong police presence both inside and outside the Castle domains. When I drove in that evening the whole of the Western Freeway had been diverted through a police random breath-test, which kind of belies the random notion. Back to the crowd though: special mention must go to the girl who told me I looked like a professional diver. This had me stumped until I realised I was wearing a striped wet suit, diving mask with blinking LED lights and a florescent snorkel. I would have thought the pink, knee-high ugg boots I had on would have countenanced any suggestion of professionalism though. Also the fluffy-blue-head-band-wearing, bug-eyed-sunglasses-touting, raver chick who came up to me as the evening’s excesses were becoming increasingly evident on the expression worn by my face and gave me a big grin and the double thumbs up! A random act but one not without its favourable effect.

Other gripes include the price of alcohol (but that’s always a gripe): $10 for a Smirnoff Ice and $9 for a beer. At least that dissuaded me from getting drunk. The flamethrowers in the main arena were pretty cool. Lining up for the toilets didn’t seem to be a big issue so that was okay. There was plenty of space for parking and camping and the additional $10 fee was probably reasonable considering the floodlights and staff they had there. All in all I minded a little less the long drive out to Kryal Castle from Melbourne and the fact that I had to bunker down in my car for a few hours before I was fit to drive the next morning, when I woke to look out at a great view east to the city of Ballarat, nestled between the rolling hills of the countryside. You don’t go to ULTRA-woooorld for the refreshing views however and next time, for all you ravers out there, bring a tent.