Boundary Brighton 2023 was a student raver’s wet dream

Back in 2016, the original aim of Boundary was simple: throw a party to mark the end of freshers week, and attract cool DJs that the student-led team wanted to see play. “There wasn’t really a big party or rave in Brighton, apart from Pride, so we wanted to start our own”, says one of the organisers, Luke Ralph, of promoter SuperCharged. 

What began as a 7,500-capacity festival run by an on-campus promoter crew has grown year on year to now host an audience of 20,000. Despite its demographic expanding to reach ravers all the way across the south coast and London, the organisers of Boundary Brighton remain grounded to their DIY roots. While still offering heavily-discounted student tickets and supporting the local SUs, Super Charged now work with larger company U-Live to put on the annual event.

Some aspects may have changed, but the Boundary team have remained consistent when it comes to delivering an impressively varied line-up – not just in terms of genres, but also the balance between big names and newer favourites. This year’s bill was a perfect manifestation of that ethos: drum ‘n’ bass ravers were treated to sets from headliners Sub Focus and Pendulum as well as upcomers Hedex, Lens and A Little Sound, while house and techno heads were catered for as Ben Hemsley, Disco Likes, SILK. and p-ralell got behind the decks. 

“We have always purposely tried to tick boxes to satisfy fans of all sounds,” Luke adds. “We like our line-ups to be a mix of established artists that we have worked with and know people will buy tickets for, and talented upcoming artists who will be huge in the next few years that we want to introduce to the Boundary audience”. 

As the years have passed, the team’s ambition has grown but still remains modest. “Our goal is to throw the best day festival party on the south coast and close the summer festival season in style,” Luke manifests, adding that within three years they want to make the festival fully-vegan and sustainable. For now, though: “we want to attract bigger and better talent and keep bringing through the next generation of artists, because discovering new music and sounds at festivals is what made us fall in love with going to festivals in the first place.” 

Unlike some promoters, Luke and the team have “no plans to take over the whole country or throw five festivals a year”. Instead, they aim to build on what they’ve already created. “We want to make Boundary as great as possible and for it to represent Brighton.” 

On the ground at Boundary Brighton 2023

Even a national train strike did not manage to derail the festival, which took place under blue, sunny skies and saw a sea of bucket hats, bumbags and vapes fill the usually-peaceful Stanmer Park. While the festival site itself was relatively small, the sound systems were anything but and there was a real DIY spirit to it all, with the smallest stage set close to trees. This was helped by the individual stage takeovers, too: the afternoon at Woodlands put Sammy Virji in charge of curating the line-up while Brighton’s coolest club, Patterns, were in control for the early evening.

5 best DJ sets we saw 

SILK

SILK proved his talent as a DJ, weaving between his own viral hit ‘Quiver’, a hard dance edit of Leona Lewis’ ‘Bleeding Love’ (Good Luck’s ‘In Luv’), Fred again..’s ‘Pull Me Out Of This’ into Nia Archives’ ‘Baiana’ not long after. The varied set – which also spanned heavy bass, grime and garage – showcased that he is a DJ who plays exactly what he wants. Not many selectors would be brave enough to drop LMFAO’s ‘Party Rock Anthem’, a pumping take on Duck Sauce’s ‘Barbara Streisand’ and a tranceified take on Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’ into their set as well as The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’, but that’s what makes his set so unpredictable. If you want to guarentee a fun party full of good vibes, SILK is your guy. Filling in for a late p-ralelll, he also ran along the front row and shared out his bottle of Grey Goose. A real man of the people. 

p-rallel

Known for his wildly energetic DJ sets, p-rallel made up for a little lost time by throwing shapes behind the decks as he rattled through a journey of garage, house and jungle party-starters, including a punching edit of Groove Armada’s ‘Superstylin’, Kah Lo’s ‘Coke & Rum’ and a percussion-led house edit of Alex Gaudino’s ‘Destination Calabria’. His own new heater ‘It’s A Lundun Thing’ went down a treat while his remix of Rio Rainz’ and Finn Foxell’s ‘sunshine’ perfectly blended into Roy Ayers’ classic ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’. p-rallel then brought things bang back up to date with two jungle behemoths (Y U QT’s ‘Y’all Ready For This’ and Nia Archives’ ‘Off Wiv Ya Headz) which both went off. 

Disco Lines

The ‘Nu Dance Revolution’ tent became a house haven as Disco Lines brought his feel-good singalong hits and trippy technicolour visuals to the festival’s big top. Like SILK, the American producer and DJ proved himself to be a fan favourite, especially as he joined those on the front row and poured tequila down their throats after dropping his simplistic tech-house stomper ‘Techno & Tequila’. Having saved his biggest hits until the end – ‘Baby Girl’ but spun into gnarly d’n’b (clearly knowing that it’s the favoured genre at this festival, with a main stage and second stage dedicated to it) before ‘I See Colours’ – two guys at the front left went wild waving their rave glowsticks. 

Hedex

At the Super Charged main stage, Hedex leads a d’n’b marathon. Having amassed a huge following, he brought a massive crowd to the main stage for his last ‘My Home Is The Rave’ show. A hands in the air affair from start to finish, he weaved in dirty edits (‘Mr Postman’) and even a track made from PAC-Man samples as video footage of the retro game played onscreen behind him. ‘Missing You’, featuring the roboticised vocals of A Little Sound, went off too.

Girls Don’t Sync 

Despite clashing with piss-takers Kurupt FM, Girls Don’t Sync deservedly drew a sizeable crowd. Bouncing around tirelessly behind the decks while dropping banger after banger, including Hudson Mohawks and Nikki Nair’s ‘Set The Roof’ and Y U QT’s remix of Lo5ive’s gospel house heater ‘Set Me Free’, they act as their own hypewomen too. “We’ve got half an hour left. Are you guys ready to party?” they shout before a rowdy edit of Kylie’s iconic ‘Can’t Get You Outta My Head’.

Ben Hemsley 

Geordie selector and Patrick Topping protégé Ben Hemsley proved himself to be the perfect DJ to close out a day of raving. He instantly dialled up the temperature inside the ‘Nu Dance Revolution’ big top tent, take by  is dedicated audience on a journey from very on-trend hard and fast techno to euphoric 90s-Ibiza-style trance (‘Erase Me’) and diva tech-house (‘What Have You Got For Me?’) all all under neon pink searchlight strobes. After a pumping workout in the form of Daddy Trance aka Marlon Hoffstadt’s ‘It’s That Time’, a message reading “Yous Are Class” showed on the screen as Hemsley closed with a timeless classic – Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better With You’.