Listen Out is an annual Australian music festival held in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

and

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

since September 2013. In 2018, an inaugural alternative version of Listen Out, titled Listen In took place in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. The standard festival is held from late September to early October. Each Listen Out concert is a one-day event attracting both domestic and international

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

, indie, and

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

ians. Listen Out uses three stages; Atari stage, 909 stage and Third base (formerly branded by Red Bull as Crate Diggers stage and Universal Store's Young Bloods stage). Listen Out has been organised since inception by Fuzzy. It attracted over 68,000 attendees during its 2016 festival tour. In parallel with the festival national youth radio

Triple J Triple J is an Australian government-funded national radio station founded in 1975 as a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It aims to appeal to young listeners of alternative music, and plays far more Australian conten ...

runs an Unearthed competition, where the state winner performs at their capital's venue. The 2020 and 2021 festivals were cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Australia The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia was a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first confirmed case in Aust ...

. It resumed in 2022 and continues to the present.

History

Listen Out was created by Fuzzy after they had cancelled another music festival,

Parklife ''Parklife'' is the third studio album by the English rock band Blur, released on 25 April 1994, by Food Records. After moderate sales for their previous album '' Modern Life Is Rubbish'' (1993), ''Parklife'' returned Blur to prominence in ...

. The new festival has an emphasis on "intelligent strains of dance music". Listen Out's inaugural tour commenced on 28 September 2013 in

, before proceeding to

and then

and finishing in

. and continued as an annual event. It consists of three stages, two of which (Atari and 909’s) have identical artist line-ups. The Atari stage is the festival's main stage and features the head-liners of the festival. The 2013 and 2014 tour allocated only electronic music acts to perform on the Atari stage, with Indie and Hip-hop acts taking place on the 909 stage. ''theMusic.com.au''s writer described the 2014 festival, "boutique national dance music event. bringing quality dance music to four spectacular inner city venues." From 2015 onward, these roles were changed as Hip-Hop acts now exclusively occurred on the Atari stage and the 909 stage became exclusively electronic music. Unlike these stages, Third base stage is used to showcase local upcoming talent from each state, with different line-ups for each leg of the show. In more recent iterations of the event, these line-ups now contain acts that tour with the festival over multiple venues, however minor tweaks are made to each state's line-up to continue showcasing local talent for each. From 2013 to 2015 the festival's third stage was sponsored by Red Bull as the Crate Diggers stage. In 2016 after Fuzzy lost its Red Bull sponsorship, the stage was sponsored by Universal Store and re-branded the Young Bloods stage. In 2017 Fuzzy formally changed it to 3rd Base, without financial support of any sponsor. Each year the winners of the annual

Triple J Unearthed Triple J Unearthed is an Australian digital radio station and online music discovery platform. It is a sister station of Triple J, owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Unearthed began in 1995 as a regional talent competition open to ...

competition for each state were given a time slot for the related Listen Out concert. The winner performed on either the Atari or 909 stage depending on the year. In 2018 Fuzzy began a new, smaller version of Listen Out named Listen In to reach audiences in

and

featuring a smaller selection of six acts from the longer Listen Out version of the tour. In 2019 the South Australian Listen In festival was announced but the New Zealand leg of the tour is yet to be announced. The 2020 and 2021 Listen Out festivals were all cancelled due to the

. They resumed in 2022 and continues to the present.

Artist line-up by year

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2022

Sources: *

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(UK) * Barkaa * bbno$ (CAN) * Blanke *

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(UK) * Dameeeela * Dave Winnel *

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(USA)

2023

Sources: * 1tbsp *

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Footnotes

Controversies

Listen Out has had a history of drug related controversies. During the Melbourne leg of the inaugural Listen Out tour, police arrested 13 people in relation to drug related offences. Police were also able to seize $10,000 worth of cocaine, ecstasy and prescription drugs. At the Sydney leg of the same tour 94 were charged by police for drug related offences. The 2014 version of listen had 37 festival attendees arrested in Melbourne for drug offences. The Sydney leg of the 2015 tour had seven people were arrested due to drug supply, with one carrying over 100 MDMA pills. A further 114 revellers were charged with drug possession at the same show. In the 2016 run of the Listen Out, during the Victorian leg of the tour a woman aged 27 died of a suspected drug overdose. As a result, the Victorian police allocated more resources to the event for following years including additional passive alert drug detection dogs tat the following year's tour. Perth's 2017 leg of the tour had nine people charged with drug related offences. The Melbourne leg had 38 people arrested on similar grounds. Sydney's leg also lead to the arrest of 116 people relating to drug offences. In 2018 following the deaths of two teenagers at the Defqon.1 festival, the NSW government heightened police presence at festivals, as Listen Out was the next festival to occur in New South Wales after Defqon.1 media attention gravitated towards it. As a result of the increased police presence, 159 people were charged with drug offences and 5 charged with drug supply. 12 people were taken to hospital at the NSW festival and 7 of these were found to be drug related issues. At the Melbourne leg of the tour in the same year 30 were charged with drug possession and one charged with trafficking cocaine. Following a successful

drug checking Drug checking or pill testing is a way to Harm reduction, reduce the harm from drug consumption by allowing users to find out the content and purity of substances that they intend to consume. This enables users to make safer choices: to avoid more ...

trial at

Groovin' the Moo Groovin the Moo is an annual music festival that was held primarily in regional centres across Australia. The festival was held during autumn, typically in May of each year. Groovin the Moo was established by Cattleyard Promotions and their f ...

earlier in 2018, the Australian Festival Association suggested to implement this at more festivals as a preventative measure to lessen deaths at music festivals, this was met with a "no tolerance policy" from New South Wale's premier

Gladys Berejiklian Gladys Berejiklian (; born 22 September 1970) is an Australian businesswoman and former politician who served as the 45th premier of New South Wales and the leader of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party from 2017 to 2021. Berejikl ...

. Fuzzy representatives replied that governments should be more open to pill testing in order to create safer festivals.

References

External links

*
Fuzzy
official website {{Music of Australia Concert tours Electronic music festivals in Australia Festivals in Brisbane Festivals in Perth, Western Australia Festivals in Sydney Music festivals in Melbourne Music festivals in New South Wales Music festivals in Queensland Music festivals in Western Australia Recurring events established in 2013