REVIEW: THE SECRET GARDEN FESTIVAL 2018
The last weekend of February not only marks the end of the summer season, but the manifesting of a magical, creative world where dreams come to life and achieving nearly six impossible things before breakfast is easy. In the form of a 48-hour themed dance party, drizzled with art installations, glistening decorations and good vibes; February 24th marked Secret Garden’s 10th anniversary, and boy did we celebrate.
Less about the lineup and more about the costume attire, this years create theme was Year 10 Formal. This meant Friday saw anything from tux’s to oversized 80’s prom dresses, to Mr G and Jam’ie King types. With the main stage surrounded by basketball hoops, a ‘Secret Garden High School’ sign and tall wooden bleachers and blue curtains, it’s fair to say the ‘gymnasium’ feel was recreated to its full potential.
With an on-stage costume competition kicking off Friday night, we witnessed the true lengths attendee’s of Secret Garden went to in order to perfect the theme. From powder pink prom suits with top hats, cruiser bottles, a life-like ecstasy pill and jocks in their best, the crowd went wild and amongst all the outrages costumes, it wasn’t exactly clear who won.
Friday night involved a lot of getting lost amongst the 13 forrest dance floors and failing to find our way back to camp, while Saturday invited in more crowds, who came to see the talented array of musical acts. However one of the other highlights from Friday night included ‘Bec’s House Party’, a room which invited guests to dance on anything in sight, themed as teenage girls house from the 2000’s while her parents were apparently out of town.
After a slow wake up and much costume prep, Saturday slowly began to come to life, this time in the form of some of the craziest costumes known to man. High on the glitter scale with (naturally) zero boundaries, Saturday’s storm found a bunch of crazily dressed people saturated from head to toe, only to be greeted by the sweltering hot sun again, 30 minutes later.
From DZ Deathrays, Holy Holy and Boat Show, all eyes and ears were on the Gymnasium stage for most of the day, where some of our favourite Aussie acts absolutely killed it. With their sets distinctively echoing through the whole festival, catching your favourite act was an easy task, especially because the crowd was free from any judgmental or pushy dickheads.
Camp Queen Fitness was one stage to be commended, bursting with energy and oozing with confidence. The stage was basically a runway with attitude, featuring some of the most over-the-top dressed ‘femmes’ to date, while the ‘Let’sin’ stage continuously delivered UK house party dance beat after dance beat. The Cosmoteque never failed to drop some phat, futuristic grooves, with each stage offering a free pass to lose yourself completely, bringing something vastly different from the next.
Secret Garden is a F&*K WIT Free Zone and donates majority of the festival profits donated to charity, making it easily one of the most inspiring festivals of NSW, with strangers bringing nothing but their quirky alter-ego’s, good vibes and zero judgement.
With 2018 marking Secret Gardens 10th anniversary, the creative spirit and energetic atmosphere of the festival is running stronger than ever before, a combination of arts and music beaming with optimism, that will be hard to top in 2019.
WRITTEN BY: JACINTA RETS
