Festival 23 will run in January 2023 with headliners including the likes of Osunlade, Seth Schwarz, Henry Saiz, Madmotormiquel and more…

It’s been a tough couple of years for festivals. Not only have they suffered through two years of a global pandemic, but in Victoria (Australia), they’ve had floods, they’ve had fires, you name it. But if we could all have the optimism of Matt Bonner, then we’d all be turning the lemons of the last couple of years into the best lemonade ever.

Matt Bonner is the director of Australia’s ‘Festival 23’, a three-day melting pot of music, movement, creativity and connection in the Macedon Ranges. Uniquely located in the grounds of one of the Lancemore Group hotels, Festival 23 incorporates both indoor and outdoor spaces that host dancefloors and workshops, and also features hotel accommodation, a swimmable dam and even an ice bath!

We spoke to Matt about where this unique idea for Festival 23 originated from, the incredible program of music and activities, which Flow Music has been part-curating, and just how he stays so optimistic in the toughest of times. 

Hi Matt, how did the concept of Festival 23 come about?

I was running a festival called Let Them Eat Cake, and as part of that I’d been putting on an after party on-site at the hotel, at the Werribee Park Mansion, that I was enjoying more than the event itself. I had such a good working relationship with the hotel group that they said, ‘Hey, we’ve got another venue. Do you want to come up and have a look at it?’ 

Once that opportunity came up, I realised I was ready for a change, and that I wanted to put on something smaller and more relatable. 

Can you tell me a little bit more about the name? What does 23 mean for you? 

The idea I had for Festival 23 itself was very much rooted in the 1980s free party scene, which I came out of, which is where 23 came from. In the late eighties, early nineties the punk scene in Europe transformed into an electronic music scene. And there were these big parties in England with lots of people, sound systems, trucks, buses – these illegal, wild, amazing, incredible life-changing parties. 

One of the crews who I had connected with, and then kept reconnecting with over the years, was a group called Spiral Tribe. And they had an obsession with the number 23, everything they did had to do with the number 23.

Everybody has their own take on it but for me, 23 for me is more symbolic of the movement than the number itself. 23 is a reminder that everything comes back to oneness, where the creation is community-based, community-driven and very DIY. 

Would you say that the site itself influenced how the festival got shaped?

Basing the event on the principles of the free party scene worked well with what was available to us at the venue, and then the venue informed us how it played out, particularly because we have indoor space to utilise. 

Having the indoor space also gives us the ability to run a party so close to Melbourne, because you generally couldn’t run an all-night party an hour from Melbourne.

Walk me through the vibe of Festival 23 – it’s definitely a unique set-up, as compared to other Australian festivals. What is the type of experience that guests will have that they wouldn’t get at another doof?

It’s firstly worth saying that there are lots of similarities. We’re talking about dancing to the beat of the drum. It’s one of the oldest things that we humans have wanted to do since the beginning of time, to get together and dance to drums. 

But there are certainly subtle differences. I think how parties play out is more in the intention than anything else. The core intention behind 23 is to leave better than you came. 

For me, that started when I would get upset watching my friends arrive at the festival, so excited to be there. And then there was this turning point at some point towards the end of the festival where everybody started worrying about work on Monday, which completely ruins the state of joy you’ve been cultivating all weekend. 

So, leave better than you came was rooted in looking at that and going, let’s design a festival where you can have your fun, but there’s enough of a framework for wellness and healing and community that you can build resilience and leave happy.

Community and inclusivity have been highlighted on your website as an important part of Festival 23 – why is this personally important to you?

Why else would you do it? While community means a range of different things to different people, for me it’s the meeting spaces we provide, which really defines the community. 

For this particular edition of Festival 23, we’ve been looking at the concept of community reconnection. People are tired, they want to get together, they want to reconnect, they want to create joy and celebrate life together.

Going back to the site itself, I’m guessing having those indoor spaces provides so much more opportunity to do cool stuff that you wouldn’t get to normally do?

Absolutely, from an experiential art perspective, it’s incredible. While dance is the core of the community coming together, for me it’s those extra experiential bits which really offer the opportunity to work on yourself. 

Our workshop directors Ivana and Dave Dinger have created an incredible program and are designing an experience that will give people the opportunity to drop in at the start of each day, and then leave better than they came.

In terms of the music, you’ve got some really great international acts coming over. How do you choose who to approach and does the atmosphere that you want to create drive those decisions?

It comes from a network of adventures in Europe, and then there are friends in Melbourne, and then Japanese friends; all along the way meeting performers and asking them to come and play. There’s always an element of chaos, some of them make it and some of them don’t, but there’s a beautiful family connectedness to all of that. 

It’s an electronic music festival and it’s all about the journey so it’s definitely been programmed to go places, but quite a few of the internationals are also going to play non-electronic music and some cool and different stuff and that’s really exciting.

Your local line-up is also incredible, and I feel like it’s just getting stronger here. How do you then choose who to pick? Because they’re all world-class!

Yeah, it’s beautiful. You want everyone to play and it’s so hard. But somehow it gets done.

We’ve got some really exciting new talent, including a whole crew, called Capture Crew, who are running the Friday night and are local to Macedon. So that’s really exciting. And then there are old friends and new friends. But everybody on that line-up has been picked because someone we know has recommended them.

One of the things I love best about going to festivals is the artists that I don’t know on the line-up because you don’t know what to expect. But then to be blown away by someone you’ve never heard of, that’s always the most fun for me.

Yeah, there are no rock stars at this party. There’s no backstage. There’s no VIP section. They get the same wristband as everybody else.

The first Festival 23 ran in 2020, right after the Victorian bushfires and just before Covid changed the landscape of the world. Obviously, it had a huge impact on the industry, but what have you learned through that experience and how has it influenced how you’ll operate and run events in the future? 

Oh, it’s a really interesting question. I think as an industry, there’s been a lot of loss – lost people, lost jobs, plus some clubs and parties didn’t survive Covid. But I think as a community, Covid has shown us what must be agile, which is really interesting. 

Heading into more and more uncertain times in terms of climate change, especially recently with many festivals cancelled by rain, finding ways to turn it around is really important. And also, just learning to live with it, as we had to learn to live with Covid.

It’s not to say negatives didn’t come out of it, but I think positives came out of it too. I think it made us all a lot more adaptable and we need the challenges otherwise it’d be boring. I do believe it’ll all work out.

What are you most excited about being out of being able to host people again in your space?

It’s the reconnection. I’ve missed everyone so much. Australian friends, international friends. The beauty of watching old friends or people who haven’t seen each other for a while connect on the dance floor to have a big hug and dance together. 

Just the pure joy on people’s faces.

Yeah, there’s nothing better than just looking around and seeing all your friends having the best time ever. That’s what they call me in Germany – The Best Time Ever. Cause I’m always like, I’m having the best time ever. And they’re like, oh look, it’s the best time ever!

The event runs 27th to the 29th of January 2023, and you can find tickets HERE.