Held on the first weekend in July, Goldfields Gothic: A Festival of Dark Ideas is a weekend of events themed around celebrating the dark side of the goldfields, presented as part of Maldon in Winter.

From the 1950s onwards, the Victorian goldfields were home to not only brave and determined miners but spiritualists, secret societies, bushrangers, ghost-hoaxers and murderers.

Inspired by the stories of the past, the festival aims to showcase the dark side of the goldfields in all its gruesome glory.

With a calendar packed with everything from goth burlesque to ghost tours, co-director Paul Kooperman said hundreds from the goth community jumped to get involved.

"We reached out to a few, various parts of the goth community," he said.

"We thought that there'd be enough interest for people to come along and to run events.

"We've got maybe 50 events over those three days, and we've got more than 1000 people booked in to attend."

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Mr Kooperman said many of the festival events had already sold out.

"We've sold out most of our events," he said, "but there's still a lot of free events that people can come to - it's looking really good."

The goth picnic in the park is set for a huge turnout, as well as the no light-no lycra goth dance party.

"We don't stand to make any money from it," Mr Kooperman said.

"The burlesque show is ticketed that money will go to the burlesque performers to come and then travel...

"The Icon, the band, is playing on the Saturday night and again, that's ticketed for their fee."

To view the full program and to book tickets head to the website: goldfieldsgothic.com

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