Buxstock 2025: How to Make a Backyard Festival Legendary

What do you consider “throwing a party” to look like? A few mates in the backyard, your “party jams” playlist on Spotify, and hopefully some chill neighbours that won’t complain?

All fair, and it sounds like a good hang, but we’re talking about a P.A.R.T.Y. The kind that the Beastie Boys fought for the right to have. Buxstock is our party, and it looks more like two stages, 400 punters, and a Funktion-One sound system that had DJs messaging weeks in advance just to get on the lineup.

To be fair, Buxstock was started by my Dad as a simple mate’s gathering in 2010, but it has grown. Now, it’s one of Melbourne’s most talked-about underground festivals. 2025’s event at Phoenix Park was a masterclass in how proper audio, the right space, and some good heads lead to an absolutely mental time.

The challenge: Two stages in two months

Planning Buxstock 2025 was like trying to solve a puzzle while someone kept changing the pieces. After their original venue fell through in mid-February, our team had just two months to pull together what was essentially a boutique festival for nearly 400 people.

Weirdly, however, having only two months actually worked out really well. It made us more prompt, and we made decisions faster. In previous years, we’d ponder over food or the stage for weeks. This time, we just knocked the dot points off.

The big difference (and main challenge) this year was running two stages. We had an outdoor main stage for daytime sets and an indoor space that could pump until the early hours thanks to better sound insulation. The EPA noise permits meant outdoor music had to stop at 11pm, but inside, the party could keep rolling into the early hours.

The sound is our headliner

While most events treat audio as an afterthought, Buxstock is an event that makes it the centrepiece. The outdoor rig was next level: four Funktion-One Res 2 speakers paired with four F218 subs, essentially giving eight individual 18-inch woofers pumping out the low end. Bass in the place Ballan!

It isn’t just about having big speakers, however. The positioning and tuning are important. With shipping containers flanking the stage, we can’t just plonk the stacks by the stage deck as the outer Res 2s would’ve been firing straight into metal, creating echoes that would’ve made everything sound like a gross tin can.

We had to bring the whole speaker stacks forward so the Res 2s could fire out into the audience. This created its own problem as it would have made a massive dead zone in the middle where 100 people would’ve had no tweeter coverage. Yuck.

The solution was two Funktion-One Res 1s as infills, perfectly timed with delays so everyone heard a coherent soundscape no matter where they stood. The indoor setup was equally precise. Initially, the BR118 subs were on stage, but the hollow staging made the bass feel weak and disconnected. Moving them directly onto the timber dance floor and coupling them together gained an extra 3-6dB of bottom end, and suddenly those 30Hz frequencies you are meant to feel in your chest were hitting hard.

When everything goes wrong (and right)

The Saturday morning brought every sound engineer’s nightmare. The main amplifier (the brain that powers the speakers and handles all the processing) was completely cooked and wigging out. An hour before the first act, we essentially had no sound system for the main stage.

This is where having mates in the industry becomes gold. Within minutes, the entire indoor Funktion-One rig was being relocated outside as a temporary fix. Meanwhile, calls were flying to Melbourne, a spare amp was grabbed from Mr. Funktion-One a.k.a. Andy Simpson from Sound Experience, and we had other Jungle Audio team members driving up and reprogramming everything (thanks Shane from RandsAV).

The changeover halfway through a set was seamless as we swapped out the temporary system piece by piece without stopping the music. This is the kind of problem-solving that separates amateur events from professional operations, where no matter what, the party MUST go on.

Why DJs go mental for Funktion-One

Ask any DJ what they want to play on, and Funktion-One will be near, if not at, the top of the list. These speakers translate music in a way that makes everything sound bigger, clearer, and more impactful. For Buxstock, putting “Funktion-One Sound” on promotional material was like adding another headliner.

Loads of people were messaging us beforehand, saying they were excited to come and play on the Funktion-Ones. Everyone wants that big stage feel that sounds great and has everything they need.

The DJ booth was equipped with CDJ-3000s and a DJM-A9 mixer, which is industry standard gear that meant artists could focus on their performance rather than fighting with unfamiliar equipment. Having reliable, high-quality audio meant they could concentrate on reading the crowd and delivering the right energy.

Lighting: Less is more, but make it sexy

While the audio was complex, the lighting philosophy was refreshingly simple. Working with Kaleb from Visual Addiction, we focused on key elements like lasers (his specialty), moving heads to follow the timber TV facade’s shape, and strategic haze machines to make those laser beams visible.

Our lighting philosophy is simple: If you’ve got a shape in your space, just work with the shape. Rather than overwhelming the space with effects, we use the stage design as a guide, creating visual impact without distraction.

The real value proposition

Buxstock 2025 cost attendees a fraction of what they’d pay for a comparable commercial festival, yet delivered production values that had people comparing it to major events. All-inclusive food and drinks meant punters stayed put, creating the community vibe that underground events are famous for.

We want people to be where the music is the entire time. You won’t hear ‘Oh, we’re gonna go back and eat, see you in half an hour.’ We give punters everything they need so we can all hang out together.

For Melbourne’s electronic music community, Buxstock, run by the team at Jungle Audio, proves what’s possible when you prioritise audio and understand your crowd. We run an event that DJs actively want to play and punters remember, excited for the next festival announcement.