Playground Weekender Festival Preview

With big new acts announced for this year's Playground Weekender, it's time to get acquainted with what to expect for this Sydney festival. After all, it's barely more than a month away...

Kicking off on the 6th of February and running through to the night of 8th, Sydney's Playground Weekender is almost upon us. Featuring such acts as Primal Scream, Jose Gonzalez, The Streets, Cold War Kids and Lyrics Born, the Playground Weekender combines some of the finest indie, rock and electro acts the planet has to offer with much talked about festival atmosphere. With this setting the scene, here's a brief overview of why you need to make this festival a part of your agenda for 2009:

Location, Location, Location:
Only a couple of hours from Sydney, the festival sits at the bank of the Hawkesbury River at the beautiful Wiseman's Ferry. For one weekend a year, what is known as the Del Rio resort turns into a festival site; the 9 hole golf course playing host to thousands of campers, big top tents plonked down in open fields and the resort swimming pool taken over by cocktails and DJ's. Wake up bleary-eyed on Saturday morning to see a pack of adventurous kangaroos parousing the camp site. Take a stroll to the main stage only to be surrounded by dense Australian bushland. It's tucked away, clean, fresh and splendourous.

Stuff:
There's genuinely no time for boredom. If you're not sinking back a few in the beer garden (adjacent to a built pub,) you can tiptoe around the corner to take a dip in the resort swimming pool next to which lies a stage that has featured a range of DJ's and artists over the past two festivals including the Crazy Penis DJ set. If neither of these tickle your fancy, it's only a short stroll down the riverside to find giant chess, croquet, giant connect four, checkers, ping pong, foozeball...you name it, it's there. Keep in mind that we haven't even begun to mention late night cult cinema, the Riverside Healing Zone or that music stuff someone mentioned earlier...

Atmosphere:
It's been talked about for two years running as one of the festival's absolute highlights. Somehow, three days straight of music, beautiful weather and stunning surrounds brings out the best of people. If you're a fan of accents, Playground attracts an unusually high number of backpackers from around the world attracted by the low ticket price, internationally renowned line-up and Summer weather. Expect a whole stack of random meetings, unusual chats and essentially what equates to pure, untouched good times. Saturday night ramps things up a second level with the introduction of fancy dress where you're likely to end up at a tent with the Scooby gang, run into the Smurfs and have chance encounters with a whole variety of character's, stereotypes and ridiculousness.

Line-Up:
The line-up thus far is extensive and impressive, but not to the point of congestion where you can't slip in a few hours of chilling out, napping out or making the finishing touches to that costume of yours. As of this writing it appears roughly as thus:

Primal Scream, The Streets, Jose Gonzalez, Cold War Kids, Crystal Castles, Crazy Penis, Lyrics Born, Blue King Brown, Salmonella Dub, Alice Russell, Yes King, Grafton Primary, TZU, Norman Jay, Paper Scissors, Watussi and many, many more...

Miscellaneous:
Of course, you can expect to see all the rest of the standard festival fare: food stalls, headwear stores, bars, bands, buskers and all the rest. Who knows what surprises they have in store for us in 2009, but it's sure to continue improving each and every time this time of year comes around.

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If somehow you haven't managed to get around to purchasing yourself a ticket, you can nab them over at the official website's ticket section at http://shop.playgroundweekender.com.au/. Current ticket prices are $166.50, but will shortly rise to $189 + BF.