Return To Rio Festival is Back For a Second Year

Dance music lovers are well and truly catered for this Spring. With the new three-day festival S.A.S.H. Sleepout geared for September, lovers of big drops and tight beats have already been planning carpools for the warmer months. Planning an exclusive dance music haven to rival your imagination, festival promoters Disktrict want to keep the tempo high until November with the second instalment of Return To Rio.

Founded by Ricky Cooper (Tricky) and Nick Law (Lawless), Disktrict launched as a local dance party arbiter of Sydney's east in mid-2012. It didn't take the DJ duo long to dabble into festival territory, holding a rainy but relatively successful Return To Rio a year later. The three-day dance music festival promises more surprises and rhyming riddles than ever — Disktrict are keeping tight-lipped about the lineup until all of the limited 1500 tickets sell out.

Taking over the Del Rio Riverside Resort in Wiseman's Ferry for a weekend in mid-November, Return To Rio shares many of the same traits with the ill-fated, end of summer retreat, Playground Weekender. Due to a major risk of flooding, the five-year-strong dance festival was cancelled in 2012 just hours before it was meant to take off, and wasn't able to recover from the financial blowout. Hopefully the weather doesn't make any threats this time around.

The poolside party vibes, the obligatory fancy dress and the beautiful venue have stayed the same but the let-your-imagination-go-wild ethos and a greater emphasis on exclusivity seem to be the defining characteristics of Return To Rio. Even buying a ticket is shrouded in secrecy, with organisers encouraging punters to ask their music industry friends where the ticket scoop's at.

Ticket prices have taken a small leap up from $120 to $150, but Return to Rio are promising an even better beat-heavy lineup than last year's, which included Mad Racket, S.A.S.H., Love Bombs, Start Cue, Murat Killic, Wonderland Ave, Simon Caldwell and a truckload of others.

Return to Rio runs November 14 – 16 at Del Rio Riverside Resort, Wiseman's Ferry. Tickets and more info available here.

Images by Kate Ryan.