20 years since it was founded in 2006 by Simon Beckingham, Finely Tuned has evolved from small-scale parties into one of the most influential culture-led live music operators in Australia.
Famed for their scenic and multi-layered New Year’s music festival Lost Paradise that’s been running since 2014, the 15,000 odd patron, multi-day event located on Darkinjung Country in the Glenworth Valley brings together sustainability, culture, discovery, and dancing into a microcosmic sweltering of ceremony.
The festival sold out in its 2025/26 iteration with Duke Dumont, Chris Stussy, and Maribou State leading a line-up of world-class acts. It’s become one of the country’s leading festivals that assumes the form of a holistic expression of culture.
Alongside the success of Lost Paradise resides Finely Tuned’s weekly Sydney venue takeovers. They host a Saturday event, entitled Above that transmutes the renowned club Ivy into an extravagant haven entirely dedicated to all things house music.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
Lost Sundays rounds out the weekly offerings showcasing an eclectic palette of sound having featured the likes of Four Tet, Barry Can’t Swim going b2b with Salute, Jayda G, DJ Seinfeld, Bradley Zero, CC:DISCO!, and more since its inception in 2021.
Despite all this success the emergence into their 20th year of operations saw Finely Tuned establish The Works series – a six-part run of events converting Carriageworks into an industrial warehouse party reminiscent of the raves Finely Tuned founder Beckingham cut his teeth at.
A-Trak, Ross From friends, CamelPhat, I Hate Models, and many more filled a line-up of what was a successful venture into a new era for Finely Tuned. It was ahead of this summer they sold 70,000+ tickets to all of their events in just one month – an affirmation of the intentionality they input into the experiences they host.
The Music spoke with Beckingham of the territory Finely Tuned has covered, and what it means to him and his team following on from their biggest summer yet, in celebration of 20 years as an independent operation.
“For a small independent company, we're a boutique company, we've got 10 staff full time and then all the contracts that feed into it,” explains Beckingham. “The landscape now is highly competitive with big global players that have huge hedge backings, but we stick to doing things that are innovative and are driven by the passion and love of doing it.
“That sets us apart, it has fed the success of Finely Tuned thus far.”
Contributing to the passionate and considered approach that Finely Tuned maintain, is their commitment to a community building and inclusive system of care.
“Everything we do is fostering a community and making people feel like they belong,” he says. ”To be part of that community and quite often, like with something of the scale of Lost Paradise, there's different communities coming in offering different creative input or experiences within that ecosystem.”
This integrated and embodied ethos is particularly apparent at Lost Paradise, a festival that has always been about more than partying for four days in the bush.
“The Welcome to Country is something we take very seriously,” states Beckingham. “We want to invite the indigenous mob into our community and we platform them from the outset to not just do Welcome to Country, but to incorporate them into an integrated program in the area of the festival called Shambala Fields.
“Over the years, by fostering all the different elements of the community it’s built the ethos behind what the event is, not just about partying for four days, but the focus on sustainability, harm minimisation, hosting yoga teachers, and various other workshops.
“Over the years people have seen the richness of what that is and that's what has fostered the sense that people belong to Lost Paradise,” he continues. “The end result is people become very passionate about being part of that community. It’s taken us 11 years to arrive here. It certainly wasn't like that at the very beginning.”
And after fostering and nurturing this expression of community into what it has become today, it seemed only natural that Finely Tuned expanded into a warehouse style event.
“The Carriageworks series has been an idea for three or four years now, but the turning of 20 years really prompted us to bring that idea to life,” Beckingham reflects. “The Works series has proven that there's a big enough audience to want to come to Lost Paradise and also enjoy curated shows in standalone venues as well.
“There's something very magical about Carriageworks, particularly that warehouse space. To be able to do a series of six shows meant that we could really up the ante with the production and the PA and all the sort of equipment that comes in to bring that show to life.”
It felt especially resonant for Beckingham to bring The Works series to fruition, not only because it celebrated the versatility and evolution of Finely Tuned, but because it represented the form for how it was he came to connect with Electronic music.
“Warehouse venues for me are close to my heart,” he explains. “I grew up with Warehouse. I'm from Manchester originally, and in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, I spent a lot of time clubbing and attending warehouse parties, that was my introduction to electronic music.
“It was a magical time back then. And between warehouse events and festivals my tastes were heavily influenced. To be able to create what we have with Lost Paradise and now to bring a series of shows to life in a warehouse all these years later on, has been a pipe dream come true.”
With two decades of significant contribution to the electronic music community in Australia, Finely Tuned have become one of the most elegant independent operations of their kind in the country.
Their attention to detail, bespoke curation and holistic consideration for establishing the most unique and intentional experiences has forged the arrival of where they are today. And yet their excitement for the next event holds no disparity from the first.
It’s been 20 illustrious years, and it may well be at least 20 more.
Head along to the Finely Tuned website to stay up to date with upcoming events.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
