Two Minds Festival will be at Christchurch's Spencerville on 15-17 March. Photo: Supplied / Lucas Perelini
Creating a playground for adults is the dream behind the Two Minds Festival, a Canterbury dance music event.
"You arrive and know you're there to have a great time on set with some of your best mates, everyone there for the same reason; to play, have fun and be in the moment. It's liberating," Two Minds Festival co-director Dan Stewart said.
The two-day festival will be held at Spencer Beach Holiday Park, a 20-minute drive from Christchurch's CBD, on 15-17 March.
Stewart and co-director Corban Tupou hosted their first "official" party as the 'Two Minds' collective in 2020. Before that, during their studies at Canterbury University, the 'Two Minds' crew practised their event-hosting skills at flat parties.
Over the following four years, Two Minds grew into a thriving event collective, running more than 30 individual gigs featuring local and international acts at venues across the motu.
But the goal since day one was always a festival.
Tupou and Stewart said some of their happiest memories had been as attendees at music festivals, and there had always been a "magnetic pull" for creating their own version.
"The best way to listen to music is outside with the sun on your skin, the grass under your feet and all your friends nearby," Tupou said. "You can't beat that feeling."
Two Minds Festival co-directors Corban Tupou and Dan Stewart, two young men making their dreams a reality. Photo: Supplied
The outdoor dance music festival is running for its second year, with weekend tickets about to sell out, roughly doubling their attendee numbers from last year.
Around 800 people pre-registered for tickets in 2023, with 2500 people signing up this year.
"The purpose and style is similar to the early days; the festival is homemade, organic," Tupou said.
"But we've gotten a little bit better at throwing and organising events."
Created by festival lovers for festival lovers
Tupou said Two Minds was just part of a thriving ecosystem of people who ran events in Christchurch and made it a fun place to live.
There would be 40 local artists, Kiwi photographers and videographers, and Canterbury food trucks and alcohol suppliers all creating a community out of the festival.
Tupou said their approach was different to what people would see at New Zealand's mainstream festivals.
"Instead of bigger stages with significant international headliners and relying on the acts to purely sell the tickets, we are relying on our experience and the atmosphere created to sell the tickets."
Two Minds Festival would feature five small, spread-out handbuilt stages, each with a different feeling, atmosphere and sounds.
"My favourite festivals are ones where you feel like you're going on an adventure. Instead of having one stage and going set to set, you've got all these different options in different places and each one is a bit of a surprise," Tupou said.
"It's a playground, not a concert and you'll enjoy every aspect of it cooked up by a massive range of people that love festivals equally as much as us."
The run sheet for the weekend includes an ocean swim on Saturday morning, yoga, disc golf, a discussion panel and a breath work session.
Stewart said he would be challenging the punters to a handstand competition.
Two Minds Festival will feature five stages, it's a playground to discover yourself and make new friends. Photo: Supplied / Lucas Perelini
"There's trees and grass and space, so people will just have fun, be a kid and make their own fun."
Tupou said they did not want the festival to grow too big, too fast, especially with the industry struggling to get back on its feet after Covid-19. Just last month, indie festival Nestfest announced it was going into liquidation.
"It's really stressful when it's no secret that music festivals are really risky financially."
But with music events like Electric Avenue growing year on year, it was clear Canterbury was desperate to dance, Tupou said.
"Our ambitions are quite big but its the balancing act of making sure we keep our head above water and let the event grow and prosper in future years," said Tupou.
A community experience
Two Minds will showcase local talent, which "offers a greater sense of community", Stewart said.
The Two Minds Festival lineup has been carefully curated. Photo: Supplied / Lucas Perelini
"A lot of DJs know each other and are friends and you can feel that in the festival vibe."
The priority was the collective experience, rather than "just being a showcase on one person and putting them up on a big screen", Tupou said.
The line-up also featured international acts, including British DJ Sherelle.
"Any person who is in the crowd should be able to relate to someone they see on the stage," Tupou said.
"That's how we got into music festivals we attended because we saw people doing it and could see ourselves in that person and think 'we could do it too'."