Sydney’s Field Day music festival kicks off on New Year’s Day

Music festivals are back as New Year’s Day partygoers shrugged off the distant specter of Covid lockdowns to ring in 2023 in style at the first major event of this year’s concert calendar.

Field Day is in full swing at The Domain sydney with bands starting at 12pm on Sunday and revelers flocking to the parkland from mid-morning in colourful, racy and in some cases quirky festival attire.

Approximately 20,000 ticket holders poured through the gates and made their way to the three stages – Center Field, Left Field and The Island – as the opening acts got underway.

Center Field, the main stage, opened with Jade Zoe and presented Tkay Maidza, Benee and Kaytranada with headlining US producer and DJ superstar Diplo scheduled to take the stage at around 10pm.

The Island and Left Field are helmed by Irish electronic duo Bicep and Texas rapper Mike Dimes, respectively.

2023 marks the 21st anniversary of Field Day. Organizers Fuzzy Australia have hosted the event since 2002 – although missing the odd year – most recently in 2021 thanks to an Omicron surge.

The event bills itself as Sydney’s “most popular boutique music festival, known for a super friendly atmosphere and quality lineups mixing hip-hop, house, indie and electronic artists from around the world”.

Fuzzy was born from a partnership between nightclub lighting operator Ming Gan, DJ John Wall and ‘assertive’ doormaid Adelle Robinson, who joined forces and began hosting events at Sydney’s famed Home nightclub in the late 1990s – and soon became one branched into outdoor festivals after.