About Slingshot
A festival celebrating music and electronic art
Slingshot, the international festival of music and electronic arts in the South, has moved to Durham, NC for its fifth edition and beyond. Slingshot’s reputation to deliver the best experience in next wave music and electronic art is unrivaled. After four successful years in Athens, GA hosting hundreds of performers and creators from across the globe for thousands of attendees, Slingshot is now proud to call the dynamic city of Durham, NC home.
Slingshot is a categorically inclusive event highlighting a range of dance, electronic, forward-thinking pop, and experimental music from around the world. The event is locally owned and operated as a partnership of Slingshot and Durham record label Maison Fauna.

Frequently Asked Questions
- Tickets
How can I purchase tickets?
You can purchase tickets via Resident Advisor, or by clicking here.
I’m scared of ticket fraud. Help!
We only sell tickets on one website: Resident Advisor. You might see some official giveaways with our partners, but we will never sell tickets on any other platform besides RA. Stick to RA and you’ll be in the clear!
How can I get my ticket?
After you purchase a ticket from RA, you’ll receive a confirmation email. This confirmation email will allow you to pull up proof of purchase. You will also be able to open up your ticket on the Resident Advisor App, which we recommend you download for convenience. Once we scan your ticket, we’ll provide a wristband that corresponds with your ticket type.
- Safety and Inclusion
What are the house rules?
Slingshot Festival is about bringing together international, national, and local talent in the city of Durham, NC, to celebrate avant-garde music and electronic art. Together with our partner venues, we strive to create a safe space where racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, ableism, aggressive behavior and unwanted advances result in a removal from the event. Everyone has a role to play in keeping one another safe, and therefore, we rely on everyone to keep an eye out, care for, and respect one another.
We understand this this doesn’t always happen, and that people aren’t always perfect. To hold ourselves and each other to the highest standard and to make the festival more inclusive, we have made the following changes this year:
– We will have a safety team that will be involved in keeping eyes on dance floors and communal spaces. We will share more about how to identify these folks closer to the festival, but they have the training to help in sensitive situations where assistance or staff involvement is required. These include issues of race, gender, and sexuality, as well as people needing access to something specific — like water, medical help, etc. If someone is making you uncomfortable, simply find a member of the safety team and fill them in.
– We are here to discuss how we can make Slingshot better, from how people enter and exit the festival, to how the weekend ends. We want to hear feedback and respond to what the community needs. Please email [email protected] and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!How old do you have to be to attend the festival?
18+.
- Accountability
Our mission at Slingshot has always been to throw categorically safe and inclusive events. It’s been brought to our attention by our local trans community that there are improvements we can make, which we are wholeheartedly implementing now. We’re grateful that members of this community took the time to speak with us, detail experiences of racism and transphobia (things which we wholeheartedly condemn) in the past, and give us recommendations for ways to move ahead and continue this work on our own. Through these discussions, we have learned about things that we, as individuals and collectively outside of our professional roles, must address to heal with the larger community, and we are continuing that work now.
Our goal, as always, is to contribute to safety within our larger community and equity for under-represented and marginalized groups. This serious work will, of course, be ongoing after the festival.
The events of the past week have left several in our community with questions, and we will address these individually as well as list some immediate action items in the next 24 hours (posted: October 6, 2022).
Thank you for your support, trust, and patience as we do this important work.Update – October 7, 2022
Thank you for your patience! There are things which we are able to speak to now and things which will naturally take a bit more time to address.
As some of you may know, there was an incident last week between our leadership and a trans woman, who is a member of the local Durham community. We understand more clearly now how we let this community down with our response, and we are deeply sorry.
On Friday, October 1, an Instagram story came to our attention. The video was shot after midnight in our parking lot when no one was at the office. It depicted an explosion with our office in the background. Unfortunately, we had to quickly try and discern the intentions of this video with no other context beyond a series of escalating encounters since May with this individual, which included vandalism and threats of a physical nature to our staff. We had also tried previously to reach out via various members of the community with hopes of addressing and de-escalating the situation, which went unanswered.
Our sole intention was to be able to quickly file a 50C (Civil Non-Contact) with this individual if deemed necessary for festival safety based on past encounters. We understand that we put a trans person at risk by reporting what we thought to be a legitimate safety concern, and we have taken the necessary actions to officially cancel this report with authorities after multiple conversations with the Durham community. We are sorry for any harm that this has caused. We notified the police of the situation but did not ask them to take any action and to our knowledge, they did not attempt go to the individual’s home on our behalf. To address further rumors and clarify, this individual is not a person of color but regardless, we understand the levity of the situation.
The action that we took was in response to a perceived safety threat, but we understand that even the possibility of putting anyone (especially a member of a marginalized community) at risk in this way is not in line with our goals. We categorically denounce any form or racism, transphobia, or violence of any kind — and we are working extremely hard to make sure that all of our actions and events that we produce reflect that.
For transparency, we are an extremely small team where everyone wears multiple hats, and we deeply apologize for taking so long to respond to inquiries about the incident publicly. We do not have a PR person, counsel on retainer, or anyone besides us trying to read, process, and respond to information while also producing a festival and working very hard to make sure that attendees, artists, and staff are all safe — in every meaning of that word.
We understand that this is just the beginning, but we are committed to ongoing active efforts to right this situation.
Please direct any inquiries to [email protected] We will respond as soon as we can. - Festival Information
Will there be any COVID safety precautions?
We encourage vaccinations, and think it’s great if you chooose to wear a mask. That being said, we are following city mandates and will not be requiring either for entry.
Can I enter anytime? Is there re-entry?
Yes, you can enter any time and re-entry is allowed! If you buy a day pass, re-entry will only be allowed on the day for which your pass was issued.
Where is the closest bus station, train station, and/or airport?
We’re located less than six blocks from both the Durham Amtrak Station and the Durham Greyhound Station. The closest airport is RDU (Raleigh-Durham), with busses running from RDU to the Durham Amtrak daily.
Can I take photos at the festival?
We encourage taking photos at the festival, but consent MUST be granted if you’d like to take photos of others. This rule of consent also applies to artists, with the exception of when they’re performing.
No professional photography allowed without a media pass. - Other/Contact
What’s there to do in Durham?
There’s tons to do in Durham. Keep an eye out for our city guide, complete with official after parties, our favorite restaurants, and fun things to do outdoors, about two weeks proir to the festival.
My question isn’t on here…
Drop us a line at [email protected].