Is Perth About To Get A Massive EDM Festival?

According to Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas, the capital of Western Australia could end up being the home to an epic music festival in the vein of Coachella.

In a new interview with The West Australian (via Out In Perth), Zempilas shared a potential plan to host a world-class, humongous music festival at Langley Park—after Fred again.. plotted a surprise visit and performed at the same venue.

Western Australia is looking to have its own signature event—Sydney has Vivid, Melbourne has RISING, for example—that can draw up to 100,000 punters on a day-by-day basis. On his Perth stop, Fred again.. brought 35,000 enthusiastic EDM punters to Langley Park after already selling over 100,000 tickets across the country with short-notice concerts.

“I’ve got no doubt we could get 100,000 people a day for three days at Langley Park, and then we’re starting to build an event which rivals the Grand Prix or the Melbourne Cup Carnival for attendance,” Zempilas told the publication about his ambitious dance festival plans.

Explaining that he’s looking to recreate Fred again..’s success with an event packed with DJs, he continued, “Think the dance version of Coachella or Glastonbury down under—that’s what we can create here, but rather than with big, expensive bands, we can do it with DJ’s.

“It’s crystal-clear Perth needs a permanent, recurring, lock-it-in-the-calendar event we can call our own—and a dance festival can be it.”

At the time of writing, Perth is already home to diverse cultural events, such as the Perth Festival (which locked in a Björk exclusive set last year), Fringe World, PrideFEST and the Perth Jazz Festival.

Out In Perth reports that Zempilas plans to address his council colleagues regarding the massive DJ event later this month. Stay tuned for more information as it comes.

Perth was recently home to one of five Souled Out dates—the R&B festival recently completed its inaugural run and sold over 75,000 tickets in five cities throughout Australia and New Zealand.