Phone-Free Dance Gathering This Never Happened Announces East Coast Dates

May 9, 2023

US producer Lane 8 is expanding his This Never Happened event series to Australia, with three dates locked in for later this year. The phone-free and photo-free festival will make its debut in Melbourne on Friday, 14th July, before heading to Sydney’s Metro Theatre and Brisbane’s Brightside Outdoors.

The event – run in conjunction with local promoters Untitled Group – will be headlined by US selector Le Youth, Canadian duo Sultan & Shepard and local producer PARIS. See all the dates and details below.

Le Youth: ‘About Us’

Lane 8 – otherwise known as Daniel Goldstein – launched the This Never Happened concept back in 2016 (he toured Australia under that tour name in that year). Goldstein also started a label of the same name at the same time.

The event has since expanded and been hosted numerous times across the globe, with the intention to create a “connected immersive environment” on the dancefloor free of distractions. Punters who attend will have the cameras of their phone taped.

“We live at a time when distractions from reality are never furthe away than our fingertips,” Lane 8 has said of the event series. “The possibilities of technology are endless, but they also limit the possibility… the possibility to really experience and submit to the moment.”

“We invite you into [This Never Happened] where the only thing that matters are the people in that room, the music and the magic that happens with those things interact.”