“I sat down and partnered with my close friend and DJ, Omega Howell and we researched a lot about the international festivals and things that go on,” he explains. “With that, we contemplated creating something in Australia that has to be a game-changer.”
“We’d done events together before,” he explains. “But this time we wanted to do something from left field, really different. So the event is called Intrigue – and with it, we’re inviting talent, we’re inviting fun and we’re giving people, regardless of who they are, the opportunity to do something fantastic.”
As a festival of dark culture and the crew is looking at covering all bases from goth to punk, right through to industrial and fetish. “At the venue, we’ll give each area a dedicated space; there will also be a number of DJs performing as well as Omega Howell, and other sideshows of a varying nature.”
Likewise, having been involved in the goth community in Melbourne for over ten years, Nero is well placed to be creating an event of this scale and nature. He admits too, that even though events like this have been held before, it has never been on the same epic scale as this. “We plan on doing the event at the Royal Melbourne Hotel.” he says. “There was a night on Friday there some time back that used to be packed out for years. For us, it’s not necessarily about trying to redo that, it’s about ensuring we can continue to celebrate the different art cultures that exist in Melbourne. Whether it’s gothic, punk, fetish or whatever – we thought we’d bring everyone together into to do an event that is going to be called the Flash Mob Festival!
“The one thing with the dark community in Melbourne, if I can call it that, is that it attracts people with talent! Whether it’s people in costume or fire twirlers or those who can juggle or perform in the arts – we wanted to invite people into a space to allow them the freedom of expression. To be honest, we don’t know how it’s going to go so we hope those people can come and show us! The idea will be to provide patrons with a voting chip and ask people to hand their chips to their favorite performer – those with the most chips get to be invited back and featured at our next event.”
Musically he adds too, that the setup will be very broad. “We will have a room dedicated to industrial and dubstep sounds, something that’s more modern and electronic and then something with more of an ’80s or ’90s theme. It’s really something we want to leave open to interpretation – but as long as the theme is dark, we’ll be happy. From there the current plan is to host the event bi-monthly but as well as that, we want to take it nationally in September, which will be really exciting. We’ve also got an international act booked which we’re hyped about – and we hope to bring in an international act once a month after that, so it will end up being a huge project.”
In all, Nero hopes that Intrigue “will be an experience unlike any other.” Laughing, he goes on to say “I know that sounds like a bit of a sound-byte and it sort of is to be honest, but we hope to create an environment that is very welcoming where there isn’t a need to feel embarrassed or ridiculed. The idea is that we want to encourage a positive interaction between all the people that come. Even if people aren’t fantastic, the idea is to provide feedback that is constructive, fun and friendly.”
So the reality is that no one knows exactly what’s going to happen on opening night. “That’s the best part,” he notes. “The night will feature a main stage when we’ll have the band Dandelion Wine; we’ll have a belly dancer as well – but in all, we expect to have five or six different areas with music that ranges from industrial and electronic, to goth and punk. We will also have some chill-out spaces and a market – it should be a lot of fun and spectacularly entertaining!”
BY REZO
