Dance music lovers sweet on Fruit Loop Festival
Sin, shown performing at Hidden Lakes in Christchurch, brings her beats to Marlborough. Photo: Supplied.
“If you build it, they will come.” That line from the movie Field of Dreams, referring to a baseball field amidst corn stalks in Midwest America, could double as the mantra for Marlburians laying a foundation for House.
House as in the genre of DJ-driven dance tracks – around which local event organisers have themed what they hope will launch an annual tradition.
The Fruit Loop Music Festival debuts on Saturday at The Fancy Cow in Rapaura. Starting 10 minutes after gates open at 2pm, pulsating beats from top names in New Zealand will set the mood for eight straight hours.
A week out, promoters already had two-thirds of the tickets sold, with roughly an even mix of locals and attendees from as far away as Auckland and Queenstown.
“We’re pretty amped,” said Jesse North, one of the Fruit Loop stirrers. “It’s really cool to see the response we’re getting from the community.
“You never know, when you put something like this out there that hasn’t been done before, what the response is going to be like. But people are excited, people are talking about it, so that gets us super excited.”
Lining up the lineup
The festival drew a marquee headliner in Dick Johnson. A driving force behind the Synthony fest in Auckland, he is acclaimed worldwide for remixing tracks for Fatboy Slim, Claude VonStroke, and Kiwi artists L.A.B and Tiki Taane.
The bill also includes Sin, co-host of George FM Drive, who performs across the globe; Kita Mean, winner of the first RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under; Pete Green, fresh off the Framingham Harvest Concert in Renwick; plus, Lenni Vibe and Not My Sister.
How did Jesse line up this lineup? Organising Pride Wairau, he explained, connected him with promoters and agents throughout the country. In fact, Fruit Loop developed in response to requests for a summer-season festival. (Pride Wairau 2026 will be 12-26 June.)
“For us, Fruit Loop is predominantly a music festival,” Jesse relayed. “The region is great at celebrating wine, food and all the beautiful things we do here. This is 100% for the music lovers – and the plan is to do it annually.”