Fred Again: Wildly popular UK music producer playing in Perth that has dominated the EDM scene in Australia

As music festivals collapse all over the country, there is one artist selling out shows in minutes.

Shows he’s barely given his fans hours notice on.

Meet Fred Again.

He’s the Gen Z, London-born sensation who has become a global phenomenon for his house and garage-infused dance music.

But it’s his “secret raves” that have skyrocketed him to worldwide stardom, events that sell out in minutes.

And it’s Perth who will be treated to his next last-minute show when the DJ descends on Langley Park on Saturday.

Fred Again gave fans just three days’ notice, but tickets sold out in less than an hour, making history for one of the biggest last-minute shows Perth has ever seen.

An army of about 35,000 fans scrambled for tickets following weeks of teasing and speculation about whether he would even make it to WA.

When he showed up in Sydney relatively unannounced earlier this month, it took Fred just one Instagram post to his 2.5 million followers to sell out the Sydney Opera House in hours for a show held on the same day.

He then released his tour list of the entire country, leaving Perth fans devastated after Western Australia didn’t make the cut.

But noise from WA fans, who flooded the DJ’s social media with comments begging for him to come, clearly made an impact.

Days later, promoters had sent a letter to residents near Langley Park advising there would be a “single-stage music event” on Saturday.

No line-up or artist was mentioned in the documents, which included noise and traffic management information and a map of the site.

Then, on Instagram — there was another hint. “No louder city I’ve ever had in my (direct messages) for real,” the artist wrote. “Getting a ticket link will be a few hours tho (sic).”

Soon enough, Fred announced he was coming to Perth to throw the “biggest party we’ve ever done”.

“I’ll be DJing for longer than I’ve ever played on any other show on this tour,” he promised. “I’ve got a bunch o (sic) new stuff to play that I haven’t played yet.”

Perth fan Tianee Brun said she has been waiting for this moment for years after missing out on his last Perth appearance at Laneway Festival in 2023.

“I love that he’s made the effort to come to Perth after we all feared he wouldn’t and that he’s saved his best show for us,” she said.

“Everything he does is so unique, his music and the way he drops secret shows... it just makes it that much more exciting.”

The buzz around the music producer is unmatched.

Not only did he sell out the Sydney Opera House twice almost instantly, but he also sold out three shows at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, which holds more than 14,000 people.

The DJ has been performing a handful of smaller gigs, announced at the last minute through social chats on Discord and WhatsApp, with only limited tickets available.

And he has also thrown out the rule book with the timing of his shows.

He hit the decks at Melbourne’s well-known nightclub Revolver Upstairs at 9am and played a daytime gig at a small cafe in Wellington during his recent New Zealand stop.

Fred Again fan Natasha Williams believes the secret to the music producer’s success is the way he uses his social media.

“He really knows how to build up hype on Instagram,” she said. “The way he drops hints to shows and plays at random places, it just gets you hooked because you want to work out his next moves.”

While Fred Again is a relatively new sensation, he has been working behind the scenes in the industry for some time, producing songs for artists such as Charli XCX, Stormzy and Ed Sheeran under his real name, Fred Gibson.

His producing talents earned him the Best Producer Award at the Brits Awards in 2020. But it was his debut at London’s Boiler Room in 2022 that saw him make a name for himself.

Fred Again was last in Perth in February 2023, where he played a highly anticipated set at Laneway Music Festival. This was a month after the release of his track Rumble, featuring popular US producer Skrillex.

But while the British superstar is proving a huge success, the same can’t be said for all Australian music events.

Earlier this week, Splendour in the Grass — Australia’s biggest music festival — made a bombshell announcement the event was cancelled likely due to a lack of ticket sales and costs.

The festival headliners included pop superstar Kylie Minogue, US rapper Future, G Flip and Arcade Fire, to name a few.

A month before that, Groovin The Moo’s festival was also cancelled due to insufficient ticket sales, which they announced just a few weeks after releasing them. Before that, the Falls Festival was also canned.

Despite a cost of living crisis and the struggles of Australia’s festival scene, Fred Again is proving the hype around the EDM scene in Australia is very much alive.