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December 18, 2019
Culture

Escape to RCC’s riotous UTOPIA

Two moon-lit stages blasting live music from the likes of party-starters Northeast Party House and rapper Sampa the Great, plus infectious electronic music from a slate of deejays backdropped by installation art and mysterious bars – UTOPIA is your ticket out of here.

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  • Words: Angela Skujins
  • Pictures: Supplied

The theme of ‘escapism’ seems to be on the tongue of most of festival organisers these days, so it’s no surprise RCC has made it a tenet of their 2020 event, with their ‘festival within a festival’ UTOPIA.

UTOPIA is the RCC’s 2020 open-air venue featuring a line-up tilting towards electronic music and an idyllic design brief, tinged with the right amount of debauchery.

Remarks

RCC 2020
Friday, 14 February ’til Sunday, 15 March
University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus, Adelaide 5000
More info

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“We’ve constructed a giant world that towers over you so you forget where you have come from,” creative director Stuart Duckworth says.

“It’s about escapism and creating a safe space where you can lose your inhibitions.”

From February 14 to March 15, the University of Adelaide’s Maths Lawns will transform into a paradise of booze, outdoor art and four-to-the-floor bangers spread across two stages.

Dusk Till Dawn – the live music stage and focal point of UTOPIA – includes a line-up of synth-pop favourites Cut Copy, hip hop and dance dynamo Baker Boy, RnB soothsayers Kllo, explosive rapper Sampa The Great, art rockers Methyl Ethyl, the boisterous Northeast Party House and more.

Connecting the two stages will be a Bar of Convenience, Bar of Paradise and Bar of Diversity, each supplying alcohol. Happy Burger and a soon-to-be-revealed pizza joint are there for late-night bites.

The “multi-storey mansion” Neon – a reincarnated RCC Neon Forest – will include deejay sets from eclectic selector András, dance-floor-filler Andy Garvey, Adelaide grime guru Strict Face, prolific producer Project Pablo, techno kings Sleep D, plus others.

Neon will also feature performance installation Awakening, scored by local producer Motez – who is also performing on the Dusk Till Dawn stage with Motez & Friends – with lighting produced by stage design whiz David Musch of Mapped. The light and music spectacle will run every night from 9:30pm.

Doors for UTOPIA open 9pm Friday and Saturday night with $20 entry and no pre-sales. But those with a new RCC Cult Membership can cut the cue with free entry, and members are also privy to the “secret handshake.”

First release RCC Cult Memberships are going for $99 but will hike up to $119 next year with a second release.

“We can’t say much about it, you need to be in the Cult to get the Cult,” Stuart adds.

See the full line-up below.

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