It was the question of the day. “How do you say it?” the bloke behind me asked in the snaking queue outside North Sydney’s Greenwood Hotel.

“Ke-HA-koo-MA” his mate said, seemingly for the umpteenth time, as they clutched their tickets and squinted under a blazing summer sun, their already peeling shoulders turning another shade of crisp. While punters may have been stumped at the choice of name for Space Ibiza’s new NYD extravaganza, they well knew who they were lining up for: Seth Troxler, the house and techno don who’s slowly become familiar to Sydneysiders, but more for his sets indoors than out.

But who can hold a party at the Greenwood and not use its outdoor courtyard? If you liked Sounds on Sunday, then Kehakuma was your ticket this year for your essential post-midnight, post-one-two-three-or-more earlier parties. They’d come from Mad Racket, Shore Thing, a mate-of-a-mate’s place somewhere they couldn’t recall and generally looked fairly fresh.

Old and young, we found ourselves here for an insanely early set that worked brilliantly thanks to summer finally arriving and the courtyard looking its sunset-best. Once in, we sauntered past the two-deck fed silent disco (yes, it really was as bad as it looked) and into the main bar, which was already four-deep by 2pm. To our right, the olde Chapel was quaking to the sounds of Andrew Wowk in a manner which jarred with my black-light, glow stick and smoke machine memories of the space.

Skirting around the courtyard, Ritchie Edwards (easily confused with headliner Eddie Richards, no?) was keeping it bass-heavy in the Golden Cage Room, and next to this again, in the sauna-like S.A.S.H. room, Nic Scali was cutting a beat in a space well suited for French legend Jef K later on. The bar was fairly free here, so we stocked up and stepped outside into the sort of atmosphere SOS were famous for.

Not much has changed here: the sandstone verandas, steps and anywhere flat packed solid with dancing punters, though the central garden had been replaced by a plastic dancefloor. Beyond this, right up against the Pacific Highway side of the courtyard was a specially-built stage and on it, Troxler himself, clearly having a good time clad in a loud blue Hawaiian shirt and ze pool cleaner ‘tache.

On comes Moodymann, up go the hands. The crowd follows, beers in hand, but he undercuts his nice technical mix with something that sounds like live banshee and the hands fall. Troxler mixes again, but the mood has shifted and his music plods. It’d work better in an indoor space, I think, but no one seems too annoyed. Someone tosses two Space Ibiza beachballs into the crowd and almost immediately, one gets stuck in a tree.

I’m not sure how much this party might reflect Space Ibiza itself, but in terms of vibe, it’s fair to say this new format might just work for the Spanish club giant. With a smaller venue, there’s more focus on good artists and nice touches, like visuals from Morph and décor befitting this beloved venue. After 2011’s cost-heavy Hordern version, this planned series of three small parties, of which Kehakuna was the first, punched well above its weight in terms of music, variety and crowd.

Let’s just see what they name the next one.