I should probably admit at this point that I am a huge YUNGBLUD fan, but that is not simply because I like a few songs. One of the biggest reasons I enjoy him so much as an artist is how versatile he is. He can move between rock, punk, alternative, pop, softer emotional tracks and heavier material without ever completely losing his own identity. The same goes for many of his collaborations. He manages to enter someone else’s musical world while still sounding unmistakably like himself, and I think that versatility has played a huge part in why his audience has grown so much.

What really sets him apart for me, though, is what happens when he gets on stage. He doesn’t just perform until the set time is over. He throws his entire energy into it, constantly works the crowd and makes the audience feel like they are part of the performance rather than simply watching it. You can genuinely tell that this is what he wants to be doing. He seems proud of what he has achieved and of the community he has built, but at the same time he never gives the impression that he is satisfied with simply repeating the same show every night. He keeps working on himself, changes details, creates different moments and tries to give people something that feels personal. A perfect example is “Fleabag,” when he brings someone from the audience onto the stage to play guitar with him. For that person, it becomes a memory they will probably carry forever, but it also says a lot about the relationship he has created with the people who follow him. He doesn’t treat the crowd as people who simply bought a ticket; he actively brings them into his world.

For YUNGBLUD’s BLUDFEST set, I ended up sitting on a small hill to the side of the Main Stage, which turned out to be one of the best places I could have chosen. From there, I could see the stage, the crowd and the overall scale of the festival. When the intro began and the screens showed footage of Dom making his way towards the stage, the atmosphere changed immediately. People completely lost it. Then he appeared in an outfit I hadn’t seen him perform in before and launched into “Hello Heaven, Hello.” At one point, his microphone slipped out of his hand and hit the stage. I didn’t even notice it from where I was sitting; I only saw it afterwards in clips filmed from the front rows. He grabbed it again so quickly and carried on so naturally that most people probably had no idea anything had happened. It was such a small moment, but it reminded me again how professional he has become as a performer.

The atmosphere during his set was enormous, but what stood out to me throughout the entire festival was how positive the crowd remained. There was no constant pushing, unnecessary shoving or aggressive atmosphere. People were there to have a good time, and there was a real feeling that they were looking out for each other. That is something I have noticed repeatedly within the Black Hearts Club community. There is a strong message around being yourself and allowing other people to do the same rather than judging them because of how they look, how they dress or because they don’t fit into somebody else’s idea of normal. That is a much bigger subject and something I want to go into separately in an article about YUNGBLUD himself, but BLUDFEST made that idea incredibly visible.

Calling something a “safe space” can sometimes feel like marketing language, but this genuinely felt like one. You could be loud, quiet, weird, dressed however you wanted, arrive alone or turn up with a group and still feel like you belonged there. The whole point seemed to be that you should not have to explain yourself. That sense of community is probably the biggest reason BLUDFEST feels different from a normal one-day festival. It does not just feel like a festival built around YUNGBLUD’s name; it feels like an extension of the community he has spent years building.

I didn’t stay for the afterparty, so I can’t judge that part of the experience, but by the time YUNGBLUD finished, I already felt like I had got what I travelled there for. The organisation had been solid, the extreme heat had been handled well, the lineup gave me several performances I genuinely loved, and most importantly, the festival never lost that sense of community.

So, does BLUDFEST deserve the hype? For me, definitely. Was taking two flights, renting a car and travelling for around ten hours for one single festival day slightly excessive? Probably. Would I do it again? Absolutely. I just hope next year it ends up somewhere a little closer to Spain.

And, despite the rumours and jokes about Australia — maybe not quite that far away next time, Dom. 😅