Why HyperFest Is So Crucial To The All Ages Scene

From the age of 14, going to live music shows was a big part of most of our lives and has been ever since.

Every week at school would be spent discussing who we would be seeing play that weekend and lunchtimes where spent discussing new bands, local and international. Back then the local scene in Perth was a little one sided heavily favouring the bar/nightclub scene for local bands to play, even many international artists opted to only play 18+ shows but with only a select few AA venues how could you blame them.

Looking back, I realise that no matter what state or city you live in, all ages shows are the foundation of the music scene, it allows younger teenagers the opportunity to see their international idols and discover new local artists and can significantly influence not only their music taste but also their attitude.

The all ages music scene was extremely influential with Ready To Fire as we were trying to breakthrough from being a young pop–punk outfit with four gigs to our name and three people at each show to playing consistent shows and supporting some strong Australian and international artists. Our style of music definitely caters more for the younger portion of the music scene and 15-18 year olds on social media are how bands are being noticed these days, from sharing on Facebook, subscribing on YouTube, following on Instagram and Twitter even reblogging on Tumblr. So booking AA shows helped us in so many ways and allowed us to be able to extend forward into the 18+ scene as well.

The growth of Australian music festivals over the last 10 years have been astronomical with the likes of Big Day Out, Soundwave, Future Music Festival, Groovin the Moo etc. However, over the last two years Perth has either seen these festivals bypass the city of collapse completely. This paved the way for smaller festivals to shine, one of which is Perth’s own HyperFest. 

Hyperfest has been the largest Perth exclusive all ages event I can personally remember, with artists such as Birds Of Tokyo, Gyroscope, Bluejuice, Karnivool, Seth Sentry, All Day and a plethora more all featuring on a HyperFest poster somewhere since its origin in 2000. HyperFest is specifically aimed at Perth's youth, targeting ages between 12 and 25 and exposes all these kids to all the amazing national and local talent that is on offer. This year with Northlane, Ball Park Music, DZ Deathrays, Trophy Eyes, E^ST, Luca Brasi and what seems like a never ending list of stacked local talent HyperFest has jumped from being a notable small music festival to one of Perth’s biggest events this year with a line-up that can definitely hold its own against current Australian touring festivals.

With many younger kids using the internet these days and finding all these local bands the demand for all ages events have never been so high and from our own personal experience with the local scene in Perth far from dead. HyperFest is an incredible event which not only provides an amazing experience for the punters but for the bands too.