RONA. launches ‘Everywhen’, a new open-air day party series

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name of a person who has died.

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Mparntwe/Alice Springs-based Kaytetye producer and DJ RONA. has announced ‘Everywhen’, a new day party series built on the idea that the place a party is held shapes its atmosphere just as much as the artists who play it.

Its inaugural edition is set for the newly opened Lango Stage at Footscray Community Arts in Naarm/Melbourne on Saturday 5 December.

Presented in partnership with Naarm radio station RRR, the first Everywhen brings RONA. together with Kamilaroi/Samoan artist Becca Hatch, who will perform live with her band, as well as Boorloo/Perth-based Wongi DJ and producer Yikes, Naarm-based Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri, and Yorta Yorta selector naycab, and Wurundjeri, Dja Dja Wurrung, Ngurai Illum-Wurrung and Irish cultural practitioner Stacie, with further special guests still to be announced.

The lineup for Everywhen’s first instalment is intended to reflect the communities and networks each artist has built, and leans heavily on artists embedded within the Kulin Nation.

RONA. has shared that her headline set is being created specifically for this edition, and has been developed through relationships with First Nations Elders and knowledge holders connected to the region, including Uncle Larry Walsh and Stacie Nicholson-Piper.

RONA. is set to weave field recordings of nature, birds, Country and waters together with stories of Place and lived experience that hold significance for the Maribyrnong area.

"It's a completely emergent way of working," RONA. says of the process, "based on relationships and what contexts the set is being created in. I sit in Country with people, and build songs around knowledge and stories that people want me to share, always starting with the energy of a story, sound, and place, and writing in response to that."

The approach extends a practice that RONA. described to Mixmag ANZ last year around the release of her 2025 EP 'It's All Here', much of which she wrote in a similar mindset.

Speaking in that interview about the settings she most enjoys playing in, she pointed directly to the kind of outdoor space that Everywhen is now built around: "My favourite contexts to play are often open air festivals or gigs where you can feel a strong energy from Country, where the wind, the birds or the rain respond as you play sounds from desert Country."

Tickets for the inaugural Everywhen are available now.