Boris Brejcha, Timmy Trumpet and Will Sparks are headlining Dangerous Goods 6XXL at Footscray Park this January 24.
Inspired by large-scale European dance music festivals like Tommorowland and Awakenings, Dangerous Goods 6XXL was seven years in the making. The one-day electronic music festival is a major career achievement for Dangerous Goods co-founders Mitchell Lyman and Alex Schmidt.
“We’re heavily invested in production and experiences that take you on a journey. Our vision is to create techno events that everyone loves,” says Schmidt.
Dangerous Goods 6XXL
- Saturday 24 January
- Footscray Park
- Join the waitlist
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
Spread across four stages and with a capacity of more than 20,000, 6XXL is Dangerous Goods’ biggest open-air festival to date.
“We were inspired by the great techno festivals of Europe,” says Lyman. “After attending Tomorrowland and Awakenings in 2018, we were blown away by the scale of the production, location and experiences, and thought, ‘We should create this back home.’ And that is exactly what we got to work on.”
The festival’s main stage was designed by Amsterdam creative studio Vision Impossible, which has worked on major US festivals EDC and Beyond Wonderland.
“The design brief was ‘white and gold castle vibes’,” says Lyman. “We were inspired by the lifelike and grand feel of Tomorrowland stages and wanted to create an awe-inspiring stage that acts as a canvas for mind-bending projections, which complement the progression of the music from day to night.”
Australian-based event producers, Synergy Events, designed 6XXL’s Side Stage, which will have large video screens and pyrotechnics. “The visuals will be epic and will showcase a series of visuals by XXX,” says Schmidt.
They’ve also got a Psytrance Stage tucked away in a forest area, offering a “more intimate bush-doof vibe for those who like to escape from the open space and into a UV wonderland,” Schmidt says.
The fourth stage, the Dance Arena, features a Boiler Room-style, 360-degree stage, giving punters “an up-close and personal experience with the artists,” says Schmidt.
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Boris Brejcha’s booking is a full-circle moment for Schmidt and Lyman, who saw the German melodic techno, house and trance DJ play at Sidney Myer Music Bowl three summers ago.
“The first major techno event we attended in Melbourne was Boris Brejcha performing for 15,000 people at Sidney Myer Music Bowl. We instantly fell in love,” says Schmidt.
Going further back, Timmy Trumpet and Will Sparks both played a role in fostering the festival founders’ love of dance music.
“We would go clubbing in Melbourne specifically to see Will and Timmy, and to have them perform at 6XXL Festival is an honour. Our wildest dreams are coming true,” Schmidt says.
The rest of the lineup features a diverse range of DJs and producers from across the globe, including Dutch memetechno DJ Vieze Asbak, TikTok famous Turkish-Dutch techno DJ OGUZ, French hard dance producer Trym, German melodic deep house DJ Pretty Pink, Dutch industrial duo Toxic Machinery, and many more.
“Growing up in Melbourne’s Western Suburbs, we loved all different genres of music,” Lyman says. “Music progression has always been at the heart of creating the lineup for our events, starting with day-vibe music and progressively getting a bit faster and harder. This lineup truly reflects Dangerous Goods Entertainment’s core style and showcases our local and international talent in a unique way.”
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The event co-founders spent a full 12 months working on 6XXL, spending upwards of upward of $3.5 million in the process. Seeing the event sell out – and with an extra two-thousand tickets made available a week out from showtime – has been enormously gratifying.
“We’re really proud,” says Schmidt. “We’ve got one of the world’s best site managers from Glastonbury in the UK, production management, stage design from the Netherlands and local designers, the best international and local DJs and Artists, and a team of experienced and talented people who came together to bring the vision of 6XXL to life.”
“We’re so grateful to work with these incredible industry jaggernauts and the nicest teams,” Lyman says. “It’s a journey and we’re lucky to have the best involved to give everyone the best experience on the day. We’re so grateful and humbled by the support of everyone who purchased tickets.”
“It all goes into production and helps us to create the best festival experience,” Schmidt says. “We cannot wait to reveal our vision on the 24th January at Footscray Park.”
Learn more about Dangerous Goods 6XXL here.
This article was made in partnership with Dangerous Goods.
