Tone Deaf's guide to the 2022/23 summer festival season

The 2022/23 summer festival season is nearly upon us. To get ready for what lies ahead, Tone Deaf and Smirnoff Seltzer have taken a deep dive into some of our favourite festivals and put together a comprehensive guide on where to go, who to see and what to expect.

The return of the summer festival season coincides with the launch of Smirnoff Seltzer’s Cocktail range. The Spicy Margarita seltzer cocktail combines margarita flavours and a dash of chilli with Smirnoff vodka and sparkling water. The Watermelon Margarita seltzer cocktail tastes as sweet and fruity as its name implies. Both drinks come in at 7% ABV, contain just 107 calories per serve and are low in sugar.

You’ll be able to enjoy the new Smirnoff Seltzer Cocktails as you load up a playlist of must-see artists at your pre-festival party and at Ice Cream Factory Festival. Then, once you’re on site at Falls Festival, Heaps Good, Ice Cream Factory Summer Festival and Spilt Milk, the bars will be offering selections from Smirnoff’s classic range of seltzers, which could include the flavours Natural Lime, Passionfruit, Mango and Mixed Berries.

To help you get the most out of these summer festivals we’ve partnered with Smirnoff to bring you the following guides for each.

Falls Festival

Falls Festival is one of Australia’s longest running and most expansive music festivals. Falls Festival started life in the small coastal town of Lorne, Victoria, in 1993. It quickly outgrew its founders’ expectations and expanded into a multi-day event with separate instalments in Victoria, Marion Bay (Tasmania), Byron Bay (New South Wales) and Fremantle (Western Australia).

After a couple of pandemic-stricken years, Falls Festival 2022/23 will take place across three locations and at staggered timings, meaning it is possible, if ambitious, for one person to attend all three events.

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Where is Falls Festival?

Featuring a lineup headlined by internationals Arctic Monkeys, Jamie xx, Peggy Gou and Lil Nas X and a raft of locals, including Ocean Alley, Genesis Owusu, G Flip and DMA’S, Falls Festival 2022 begins with a three-day festival in Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl and surrounding Kings Domain parklands.

The Melbourne CBD iteration of Falls Festival will run from Thursday, 29th to Saturday, 31st December. Due to its inner-city location, there’ll be no camping at this year’s Victorian Falls Festival, which gives event-goers the chance to roam Melbourne city and inner suburbs after each day’s entertainment concludes.

Falls Festival will set up shop at North Byron Parklands on the far-north coast of NSW from Saturday, 31st to Monday, 2nd January. Falls Festival Byron is the only camping event on this year’s itinerary, which makes it entirely different from the Victorian and Western Australian instalments.

Camping tickets must be purchased separately to three-day event tickets, but camping at Falls Festival Byron is not mandatory. Festivalgoers are welcome to find accommodation in proximity to the Yelgun event site and locals can travel to and from home each day.

Falls Festival’s final stop is Fremantle Park, WA, where it’ll be for the weekend of Saturday, 7th and Sunday, 8th January. Like the Vicotrian event, Falls Festival Freo is right in the heart of bustling Fremantle and therefore possesses unique allure for those who don’t simply want a festival experience, but an opportunity to do some sight-seeing in between and after each day.

Who’s Playing?

Arctic Monkeys will headline Falls Festival a couple of months after the release of their long-awaited seventh album, The Car. The record’s lead single, ‘There’d Better Be a Mirrorball’, suggests the Sheffield lads’ first effort in four-plus years will uphold much of the vintage pretence of 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.

Based on recent setlists, however, Alex Turner and the gang aren’t averse to performing hits like ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ ‘Teddy Picker’, ‘R U Mine?’ and ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’.

Along with big names like Jamie xx, Lil Nas X and Chvrches, the Falls Festival lineup includes many overseas rising stars, such as garage and 2-step influenced bedroom pop producer PinkPantheress, Mexican-American indie rock artist Jean Dawson and eclectic synth-pop duo Magdalena Bay.

Also of note are Australian artists such as producer Moktar, whose latest single ‘Immigrant’ combines techno dynamics with Arabic instrumentation informed by his Egyptian background, and the loud and extroverted hip hop of YNG Martyr.

Heaps Good

Why do so many tours and events jump straight from the east coast all the way to Perth? Do South Australians not deserve to have a good time also? Well, the folks at Secret Sounds have decided that, actually, Adelaidians deserve nothing but the best, which is what they’ll get from the inaugural Heaps Good festival, which hits Adelaide Showground on Friday, 6th January.

Getting to Heaps Good

Adelaide Showground is located in Wayville, a few kilometres south of the Adelaide CBD. It’s easy to reach via train, with the Adelaide Showground stop located on the City to Belair train route. It’s also accessible via bus and tram and if you’re coming straight from the airport, you can get to the Showground in about fifteen minutes in a taxi or rideshare.

Who’s Playing?

Heaps Good features a condensed version of the Falls Festival lineup. Arctic Monkeys again lead the pack, alongside Scottish synth pop trio Chvrches. Chvrches make pop music for thinking people, and cathartic music for people who think too much. Vocalist Lauren Mayberry sings in full Scottish brogue, which is less affection and more a consequence of her complete dedication to her craft.

Berlin-based Korean DJ and producer Peggy Gou will be spinning melodic house music, while Jamie xx is back in Australia for the first time in seven years, showcasing his IDM-inclined house, garage and jungle-influenced productions.

Despite its small (compared to Falls Festival) lineup, local representation at Heaps Good is strong, led by Yolŋu surf-rock outfit King Stingray, whose debut album is so good they’re even playing it at Woolworths. Young Franco will be on hand to keep feet moving, as will triple j’s Ebony Boadu, while Fremantle’s new biggest band, indie rock outfit Spacey Jane, will be generating sing-alongs aplenty.

Ice Cream Factory Summer Festival

Located in Northbridge in central Perth, the Ice Cream Factory Summer Festival is a month-long series of open-air live music events. The live event program begins on Friday, 2nd December with an event headlined by The Veronicas and comes to a close with Cosmo’s Midnight on headline duties on Wednesday, 28th December.

Where is the Ice Cream Factory?

The Ice Cream Factory is located in Perth’s always bustling Northbridge district, which is roughly 500 metres from the Perth City train station. The location was once the site of the Peter’s ice cream factory, but is now operating as a licensed performance and event venue.

Each event on the 2022 ICF program will be different from the rest. The venue includes unique indoor and outdoor zones as well as pop-up bars, extensive dining options and activations for Smirnoff Seltzer.

Smirnoff Seltzer and Smirnoff Seltzer Cocktails will be available in the 12x4m x 17x4m space, which will be furnished with day beds, misting machines and cacti, all contributing to a palm springs oasis vibe.

Who’s Playing?

There are a lot of options in Ice Cream Factory’s five-week Summer Festival program. Before The Veronicas can get on stage on opening night, the crowd will hear from pop-electro duo Electric Fields.

Week two begins with an event co-headlined by the exceptionally talented Vera Blue and pop rock classicists Holy Holy. A couple of nights later, Sydney wonky electronic masters Hermitude will take the stage following a performance from British EDM rapper Example.

There’ll be plenty of opportunities for dancing away a warm summer evening come week three, which features The Presets supported by festival favourites Northeast Party House and Perth-based wunderkind Arno Faraji, and Hot Dub Time Machine alongside Tiger Lily and Jawbreakers.

On Wednesday, 28th December, the final live event of the 2022 Ice Cream Factory Summer Festival features artful electronic musician FOURA as well as tastemaking dance music royalty Nina Las Vegas. Cosmo’s Midnight will bring the event to a close, sampling from their albums What Comes Next and Yesteryear as well as recent singles ‘Can’t Do Without (My Baby)’ and the Tkay Maidza collab ‘Bang My Line’.

Spilt Milk

It’s no use crying over spilt milk. What will provoke tears, however, is a look at the Spilt Milk lineup for anyone who missed out on tickets to this year’s three-date festival tour. Spilt Milk is back and bigger than ever, with events in Canberra, Ballarat and the Gold Coast. They’re all sold-out, but an official resale is up and running.

Locations

Spilt Milk runs over two weeks at the end of November and the beginning of December.

First stop is Canberra’s Exhibition Park, a capacious site that includes plenty of natural shade and ample dancing room. The festival can be reached via light rail; trains run every 10 minutes or so from the city to EPIC and Racecourse station. There are also regular buses from the city to the event site, which is approximately a fifteen minute drive away.

Weekend two of Spilt Milk kicks off at Ballarat’s Victoria Park on Saturday, 3rd December. You can get to Ballarat from Melbourne via train, which takes an hour and a half from Southern Cross Station in the city. Melbourne on the Move is also offering return coach transfers from a variety of pick up points to and from Spilt Milk. So if it’s a day trip, this is the best option.

The final Spilt Milk 2022 event goes down at Gold Coast’s Doug Jennings Park, which is located at The Spit surrounded by ocean. There will be event shuttle buses running between Cypress Avenue in Surfers Paradise and Doug Jennings Park, which is the recommended method for getting to Spilt Milk.

Who’s Playing?

Spilt Milk features Australia’s favourite adopted Liverpudlians The Wombats, who’ll be back in Australia for the second time this year. London grime MC and social justice advocate Stormzy is coming to Australia for the first time since releasing his album length master statement, Heavy is the Head.

Canberra festivalgoers will get to see Toro Y Moi, who’s long since outgrown the chillwave tag to cultivate a career as a progressive pop stylist, as demonstrated by his latest album, MAHAL.

The lineup includes strong First Nations representation courtesy of hip hop artist and Bad Apples signee Kobie Dee, rising Canberra rapper YNG Martyr, and Yolŋu surf-rock outfit King Stingray. There are also artists spanning hyperpop (Ninajirachi), commercial bedroom pop (Peach PRC), sophisti-indie pop (Telenova), genre-shattering hip hop (Genesis Owusu), heart on sleeve pub-punk (Beddy Rays) and pop punk revivalism (Stand Atlantic).

Oh, and did we mention Flume is playing? You can expect to see some big name guests appear during his headline sets, as Spilt Milk occurs alongside Flume’s Palaces tour, for which he’s bringing out Caroline Polachek, Channel Tres and Toro Y Moi, as well as Vera Blue and MAY-A.