"The ultimate diversity": Gaytimes is your favourite DJs favourite queer festival

When it comes to queer electronic music festivals, you may consider the likes of Leipzig’s Whole Festival or London’s Body Movements. Few would have Australia’s Gaytimes Festival on their radar.

And yet, this is a festival which has invited globally renowned Australian exports up onto its decks - HAAi’s appearance in 2022 is a standout example. Moreover it has paved the way for additional exports to flourish - Jennifer Loveless and CC:Disco! are just two more examples. 2024’s eighth edition welcomed rising European-based talent such as Munich’s BASHKKA and Barcelona’s ISAbella.

Now this independent festival, hidden away in a Gembrook forest around one hour from Melbourne, has excitedly announced its 9th edition on 23-25th March 2025.

Directed by Anna Whitelaw and Creative Director Grace Darling, the Gaytimes journey starts some fifteen years ago with the fortuitous meeting of its two founders - Whitelaw and Mason Brown - at an entrepreneur meet-up in Naarm/Melbourne.

The pair had a vision to create and run an inclusive queer party in Melbourne. CLOSET was born - the name chosen to reflect the experience of being “in the closet”, which Whitelaw and Brown agreed was something that would resonate with all genders and sexual identities among Naarm’s vibrant queer scene.

After successfully establishing the CLOSET brand in Naarm, taking the party to several never before considered queer venues, thereafter followed the concept of running a weekend-long CLOSET party - Gaytimes Festival, as it is now known.

“When Mason and I started CLOSET back in 2009, the opening night was so popular we had to open another floor of the club and ask the DJ’s to play twice.

“I’d been to Coachella and Meredith and I thought… I love festivals - why isn’t there a queer one? But when we started Gaytimes we hadn’t even run a bar outside before.”

From humble beginnings on a mountaintop at Lake Mountain Alpine Resort, the festival has grown and expanded to find its current home in a forest in Gembrook on the grounds of a local Scout Camp.

“At Lake Mountain we felt like we were partying on top of the world. We had 500 queers having a great time, the most amazing sunsets, and these tiny little basement clubs with sweat dripping off the ceiling.

“But it got to a point where we realised we couldn’t expand the festival and we needed to find a new home.

“We needed to replicate the same infrastructure with permanent showers and toilet facilities. That’s when we stumbled upon the Scout Camp – and we’ve been so lucky that the Scouts have embraced us.”

“Grace [Darling] came in from a festival background and she just made the place look amazing.”

With 2025 on the horizon, we take a look back at the events of Gaytimes 2024. It's clear to see why “The festival of your big gay dreams” has become a fixture on the Australian festival calendar.

On Friday afternoon revelers pour into the campsite – many of them attending their third, fourth, fifth edition - and things get going with a wholesome opening ceremony followed by the first stream of artists on the Gaytimes Main Stage.

The festival seeks to give opportunities to queer artists in an environment where they are most comfortable to be themselves.

Taking to the stage for her debut festival performance, Charley shares its 2 years since her coming out, asking the crowd “Who’s queer?” to which she receives the biggest cheer of the night. She admits on stage “usually when I ask that I get 1 or 2 hands up”.

Miss Kanina delivers a fierce performance before a high energy routine from Main Stage hosts for the night, Melbourne-based House of Buffet.

At Val’s, one of the three indoor stages, you can participate in activities such as queer speed dating and enjoy hair-raising late night Cabaret. Expect the likes of sword swallowing and performers draped in little more than whipped cream - in amongst the sweaty chaos it doesn’t stay on for long.

Meanwhile on the two dancefloors, the glittering fairy light-lined ceilings of Muriel’s and the darker, smoke-filled warehouse Nighttimes continue the party into the night. At Nighttimes, AHJU drops MANIC’s Jump Into This as the festival lifts off the ground in style.

Saturday opens with a morning rave down at Chapel, a stage hidden in the forest foliage, as festival goers bring in the morning with a dose of fresh fruit and deep house.

Chapel also plays host to educational workshops discussing queer sexual health and relationships, a sign of the festival’s intention to provide a safe space for queer fun with a mature perspective on challenges faced by the community.

On Saturday afternoon, the entire festival gets together for one of the highlights of the weekend: Gaytimes Drag Race. The extravaganza kicks off with an actual running race (minus the heels) and is followed by lip sync performances from dolled up attendees confident enough to face the entertaining critiques of the judging panel.

The crowd is in high spirits as CC:DISCO! takes to the stage for her Saturday afternoon slot - a slot which she is delighted to fill for the 3rd time as she opens with her own track “Chez Moi”, which propelled the Australian-born, now Lisbon-based, artist’s career last summer.

Speaking after her set CC:DISCO! says “Opening with Chez Moi, it felt right”.

After all, it’s in Melbourne where CC secured her first residency playing at Closet.

"The queer community took me in first and I'll be forever thankful.

“For me this festival is the ultimate diversity. There’s something about it that takes everyone in.

“You can bring your queer friends, your mum, your straight cousin! They’ll be welcomed in with open arms.

“There’s so many sections of the Melbourne queer collective coming together here and Gaytimes is really a celebration of that family.”

CC’s imprint Miami Daddy debuted in November 2023 with the release of “Magic” featuring vocals from long-time friend and Gaytimes resident Jennifer Loveless.

Guitar Hero, the second release on the label, also features a remix of “Magic” by rising Munich-based DJ and Blitz Club resident BASHKKA, who spun the fresh housey number during her classy peak time set on Saturday night, before closing with Xpansions’ euphoric “Move Your Body”.

3rd Orbit closed out Muriel’s on Saturday with a set shifting between electro, breaks and UK Garage – a spin of DMX Krew’s Return to Jupiter was a highlight of a genre-bending set.

On Sunday the festival gathers at Chapel for Sunday Mass - a Gaytimes tradition where attendees lineup to receive a complementary sip of Goon and a Vegemite shape, confess their sins for absolution, and listen as drag queen host Bae Marie reads excerpts from Robert Baden-Powell’s “Scouting for Boys”.

Sunday is the most electronic music focused day on the program, with the main stage dedicated to DJ sets from ISAbella, Onyx, Confide and Merve as attendees dust themselves off for one final doof of the weekend.

The evening undoubtedly belongs to resident and mainstay Jennifer Loveless. The now Berlin-based artist, who has carved out her career in Europe playing slots at the likes of Panorama Bar, also started out at Melbourne’s CLOSET and has played every year at Gaytimes.

For the last four years she has played the closing slot - this year a 3 hour tea time set as the festival reached its peak on the hottest day yet.

“I feel like I play more flamboyantly, and more emotionally, just because I know the crowd so intimately and I know I can go there.

“This is the first festival where I’ve been given a residency and this closing time slot, and I think in a lot of ways this festival has been integral in building my confidence as a DJ.

“Back when I lived here I’d see some of these people every week, so it’s nice to have this to come back to every year and see familiar faces, it feels like a homecoming.

“Australia is really getting put on the map now, people are noticing, the proof is in the wave of overseas parties coming this way: Warehouse Project, NTS, and Dekmantel.”

Loveless closed her set with Whitney Houston’s I’m Your Baby Tonight as the crowd cheered and the stage filled with exuberant staff and volunteers.

During the closing ceremony Bae Marie, hosting for the 4th year in a row, exclaimed “something was special this year”.

With an intimate crowd of 1500 and a team of dedicated queer staff and volunteers, there is a real sense of community spirit here. You can expect to bump into the same friendly faces over and over again – that’s if you can still recognize them post-outfit change.

Whitelaw concludes: “Every year is an evolution and we’re always trying to perfect it, like an art project – and the project is to make this the best queer party on Earth.

“One of the most amazing things about Closet is that it has been an incubator for DJ’s to reach their potential.

“And now with the festival – it’s great seeing all these people who came as punters, start DJ’ing, then playing at Closet, then at the festival, and now they’re running their own parties.

“The best and worst thing about starting this is that I’ll never really get the chance to attend it [as a punter]!

“I’d love for this to be a flagship event for queer artists from all over the world to see and want to play when they come to Australia.”

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Tickets to Gaytimes Festival's next edition, March 21-23 2025, are available via their website.

Gaytimes Festival takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. The festival pays respects to their elders past and present.