Does a slightly dodgy gimmick make for a majorly shit music festival? As Lyric Waiwiri-Smith finds out, not necessarily.

To have entered Auckland’s Mystery Festival on Saturday, you needed stamina, a fondness for drum and bass, break-neck-speed head bopping, a pair of jorts or those ruched Glassons short shorts and, most importantly, to be “in the know”.

Being in the know in this sense meant being an active George FM listener or chronically online, where you may have stumbled upon the mystery of the Mystery Festival and its bubbling social media hype. The mystery being an $89 gig held by electronic music promoters Audiology Touring, with only half of the lineup revealed before you arrive. You have to show up to the CBD’s Albert Park to find out who else you’ll be seeing.

I’m not a fan of DnB, but I did see Patrick Gower share something about it on Instagram, some kind of stunt the fest was trying to pull to get him to appear, because no one sells anything to 20-somethings these days quite like him. Unfortunately, Gower was not there on Saturday (to my knowledge and eyes) but Mystery Festival did have the second-most beloved and talented journalist in New Zealand in attendance: me.

The festival opened its gates at 2pm, but we joined the slow line around 5pm, past the youths polishing off their pre-drinks around the corner and behind the punters getting caught out with security guards checking wallets as well as bags. After about 30 rounds of I Spy, we were in.

Inside, Albert Park was sliced into a chunk between the rotunda, which hosted a small DJ stage, and the fountain, opposite the main stage. This approach cuts off a lot of the grounds, but it also means you don’t have to sell as many tickets to fill it up all of its 14 acres. Albert Park is a fantastic location for a festival, and it’s a shame that nothing has really gone on here since Laneway 2020 (the festival moved to Western Springs post-pandemic in 2023). There’s natural shade, enough lounging space to feel distanced from any chaos and it’s right in the heart of the CBD on the edge of the university district, meaning afters on K Road is a promise, not a hope, and most of the breathers probably got home safely.

Saturday morning surely provided a “day for it” but the sky had greyed by late afternoon, and the flower beds that help the park bloom were removed to allow for foot traffic. It was pretty easy to get through the crowd and find a grassy spot in front of the rotunda and find out that, maybe, you actually enjoy some heavy techno. Two dancing girls stopped beside us to catch their breath and trade guesses for who the night would bring, but the only name I could think of was Aphex Twin. Turned out, I was imagining the wrong kind of techno.

The concept of a mystery music festival may seem like a bit of a dodgy gimmick to some, but it also offers something your standard gig doesn’t. Firstly, you’re bringing together a bunch of people who are fans of a genre, rather than a specific person. This eliminates the annoying people who push you out of their way so they can get to the front of the stage, or belong to a certain sub-fandom – say, Travis Scott’s ragers. Secondly, there’s no pressure to try to see a certain performer, so you can genuinely just chill out in the park and enjoy some music.

We joined the only bar line when it had stretched about 10 metres from the counter, with bodies pushing in left, right and centre. The lines to the portaloos were much stinkier but just as predictable, and the toilet paper supplied was so thin it ripped into small ribbons on contact and then was carried through the grounds by the soles of people’s shoes. You couldn’t tell if the white and brown paper dispersed along the grass was carrying the remains from the loos, or the muddied ground.

At 6.30pm, after settling on the grass with spring rolls and sweet chilli sauce, a mystery was revealed: UK producer Example, who had only landed in Auckland two hours before. I was genuinely pumped for this, as a lifelong fan of his deep cut Nando’s track with Ed Sheeran. Despite a bit of a dead crowd vibe (the price an artist must pay for being a surprise performer), Example brought a performance bigger than the stage given to him, with ‘Kickstarts’ bringing most of the loungers off their feet and into the flailing limbs. English DJ Friction would be taking the stage later, but we sought a more chill scene.

From about 7.30pm until the end of the festival at 10pm, I mostly kept camp in front of the small rotunda stage. It was advertised as a 360 stage, but because two of its corners were cordoned off, it was more like a 180, though the bass from the speakers could have pierced you at any angle. It’s difficult (for me, at least) to describe the appeal of DnB, because it is a lot of thump, thump, thump. But those thumps do (usually) produce a rhythm, and that rhythm gets your foot tapping and head nodding, and before you know it, you’re letting the music spin you like a snake charmer.

I danced with a cowboy named Carter and shared a rollie with a girl who told me, despite her eyes being vacant and glazed over, that I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. If you looked too far around your peripheral, you’d know you were only one of maybe 20 people feeling the dancing fever, but it doesn’t matter when you’re lost in the moment and the people most immediate to you are in it too. The final DJ on stage said it was his first time performing, but I couldn’t tell (I wish I could remember his name as well, but alas, it was all a mystery).

My loudest complaint is having to pay $40 for four cans of Heineken, which is a decision I made for myself and I sympathise (though this feeling often wanes and waxes) with how difficult it is to make a profit from a festival. I guess it’s how small town man Joel MacManus must have felt when I took him to a pub in Auckland on Friday, and he complained to the bartender about having to pay $39 for a two-litre jug of beer. It feels wrong, but you’ve done it to yourself, and how is the bartender supposed to fix it?

All in all, it was honestly a really great vibe, with a crowd that may have been dead at times, and at others, desperate to wrap each other in love. I write this with shock permeating through the keyboard, because it seems that I have unlocked the mystery: something doesn’t have to sound like it’s for you to be enjoyable for you. Most importantly, I’ve walked away with something I never thought I’d have: an appreciation for DnB (though I think I’ll mostly stick to my Aphex Twin).