First established in Montreal in 2003, Piknic Électronik has expanded into a Sunday ritual for electronic music fans around the globe, expanding to Barcelona in 2012 before making its way to Dubai and Melbourne in 2015. The event has since become a rite of passage for young music lovers around the city, with one excited attendee exclaiming their love for “Sunday Mass” while waiting in the queue to enter.

Having not attended a Piknic event since the previous season at the old venue, I was interested to see what the Sidney Myer Music Bowl would offer. While a little more out of the way, the venue was spacious, with the entrance gate at one end and stage at the other, and food and drink trucks and stalls stationed in between.

The event has always advertised itself as family friendly, and event #10 proved that. Families with children were given a special price on tickets, and a kids zone near the entrance had a fenced off area with an inflatable castle – but dedicated little fans were spotted throughout the day on shoulders in the heavy crowd.

Melbourne duo Market Memories provided a welcome opening to the day laying down some deep house grooves. Setting the scene and dropping tracks such as Claude Von Stroke’s classic ‘Who’s Afraid of Detroit’ getting everyone dancing early on. Market Memories made way for Autosea’s own Paul Lynch at his debut Piknic performance. After a busy summer playing at some of Australia’s most well known electronic music events and venues – including Strawberry Fields Festival and the infamous Revolver Upstairs – he was totally at ease as the crowds began to filter in. Lynch’s set was an eclectic selection of tracks starting with four to the floor house music before moving into more techno territory. Tracks that stood out were Mr G’s ‘Transient’ and Fango’s ‘Vena Cava’.

As the temperatures started to drop, Bloody Mary continued to bring the heat with an acid-filled set to match her energetic presence, jumping straight into her trademark sound of high-energy techno dropping everything from dark-brooding Berlin techno and even Radioslaves new record, ‘Another Club’.

Danny Daze then followed with his first performance at Piknic Électronik Melbourne, electrifying the crowd starting things off with a left-field electro breaks cut before showcasing his quick mixing style and dropping some of his original productions including ‘Ready2Go’ and ‘Miami’.

Dr Rubenstein finished off the day as the sun went down with dark acid and hypnotic techno, dropping unreleased cuts and classic favourites including ‘DJ HMC 6AM’ and Humate’s ‘3.1’. Bloody Mary, Danny Daze and Dr Rubenstein all provided great warm-up sets for the inaugural Babylon festival in Victoria this coming weekend. The earlier finishing time was an unwelcome addition to the event for most, with Paul Lynch stating that the ‘day was a farkin 13 out of 5.’