Doof
type of outdoor dance party in Australia and New Zealand
A doof or bush doof is a type of outdoor dance party generally held in a remote country area, or outside a large city in surrounding bush or rain-forest. The term doof was first popularized in Australia and New Zealand and can be repeated to varying degrees (e.g. "doof doof") depending on the speaker’s disposition, intended emphasis or simply as an explanatory means. The term has since gained international usage for similar events, often propagated by small sets of social groups to grow into a subculture with millions of active members, and is considered by some as a cultural movement. Doofs share many features with other outdoor parties scenes around the world, such as raves, teknivals and free parties. They often have healing workshops, speakers, art, live bands, performance art, and DJs playing a range of electronic music (most commonly psychedelic trance, goa, house, dub techno, Techno, and acid heavy sounds).
Etymology
The name is onomatopoeic, and is derived from the sound of the kick drum used in the electronic music frequently lettered (as in "doof doof music"). According to Peter Strong, the original term "doof" was created in Newtown, Sydney in Spring 1992, after a neighbour of the Non Bossy Posse knocked on the door to complain about their music: "What is this Doof Doof Doof I hear all night long, this is not music" she exclaimed. The term did not become a popular designation for outdoor dance parties until after the mid-1990s.
History
During the 1990s, free dance parties proliferated in Sydney, particularly in Sydney Park in St Peters and warehouses of the Inner West.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Doof” is type of outdoor dance party in Australia and New Zealand. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Doof, type and outdoor, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “type of outdoor dance party in Australia and New Zealand” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5297005. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1992.
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This entry incorporates text from “Doof” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.