A friend and I have flown into Singapore just to attend the ZoukOut festival this weekend. It’s the biggest turnout out of its 13 year history with 41,000 people attendence and a relatively strong line up. Also with the cancellation of Alesso for the Stereosonic Australian Music Festival shows, it would be a great opportunity to see him. So let’s put on some onesies and see how it is!
ZoukOut Music Festival 2013 @ Silosa Beach, Sentosa Island, Singapore
ZoukOut Festival
Essentials:
Opening Hours:
Friday: 8PM? – 5AM
Saturday: 8PM? – 8AM
The times suit the climate of Singapore, as it often rains during the daytime, while at night there is a lesser chance of rain occurring. Both nights the weather at night turned out clear.
Address:
It’s held on Silosa Beach, Sentosa Island
Parking:
Pretty much everyone caught a taxi here or caught a shuttle bus from a nearby MRT station. If you were lucky you could have booked a hotel on Sentosa.
Venue Website:
http://www.sentosa.com.sg
Event Website:
http://www.zoukout.com
Promoters:
http://www.zoukclub.com
Occurrence:
Every year since 2000
Dress Code / Door Policy:
Pretty much anything is allowed, bar being nude. A guy even brought in a blow up doll without any troubles. I wore my bumblebee onesie, which turned out to be one of the worst decisions made in a humid place such as Singapore.
Beach pre drinks
Entry Fee / Cover Charge:
Two Day Festival Pass: $168 SGD
Day 1 Happy Hour (entry before 10PM): $88
Day 1 Advance [1st release]: $98
Day 1 Standard [2nd release]: $108
Day 1 Tickets at the event: $118
Day 2 Happy Hour (entry before 10PM): $98
Day 2 Advance [1st release]: $108
Day 2 Standard [2nd release]: $118
Day 2 Tickets at the event: $128
Each day is assigned a separate wristband. My friend got caught out and we assumed the wristband applied for both days (as per Stereosonic). He didn’t bring his ticket for Day 2 and the guys at the counter would not accept a wristband and online receipt as official acceptance of payment – he had to sit out Day 2.
Passouts:
So long as you had a wristband you were able to go in and out of the beach as you please.
Cloak Room:
Yes. $20 SGD
Tonight:
Outside Line:
Day 1: Quite fast
Day 2: Quite slow. Loads more people attended Day 2 and a lot of cutting the line was involved.
Inside:
Entrance is on the East Side of Silosa beach. Various bars and stalls are scattered around the beach. The Star Stage is the first big stage on the right, while the Main Stage is on the West Side of the beach. There are other smaller areas with swimming pools and ‘VIP’ areas to hang out which have views of the stages. The best VIP area would probably be the Citibank area, with well a lit decor and front Pool, while being near the Main Stage on the Western side.
Strawberry
Bar Prices / Line:
The wait was about 10-15 minutes for a drink on average. This year saw the introduction of the pre-paid card system for drinks, which is becoming the standard for most music festivals.
$10 for all Mixed Vodkas, Gins, Bourbons, Whiskeys [Mixed with Green Tea, Coke, Sprite or Soda]
$5 for Redbull, Soft Drinks, Green Tea.
Tip: As in most Asian countries, the cheapies (including myself) pretty much got their pre-drinks from 7-Eleven and drank outside on the beach before going in. There was only one 7-Eleven on the way to Silosa beach and it was packed. The 7-Eleven employees were just dishing out the alcohol and beers, while people queued for drinks.
DJs: (Internationals listed here, but there were also many other local acts)
Day 1: 12th Planet (US), Benga (UK), Afrojack (NED), Example & DJ Wire (UK), Ferry Corsten (NED), Krewella (US), NERVO (AUS) ,Otto Knows (SWE)
Day 2: Teal / Nitelist Music (WOMB, TOKYO), Alesso (SWE), Danny Avila (SPA), Dash Berlin (NED), Kölsch (DEN), Lee Foss & Anabel Englund (US), Martin Solveig (FRA), Seth Troxler (US), Solomun (GER), Zedd (GER), Cyberjapan Dancers (JPN)
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Line up looked really good, so we thought it would be very good value considering other festivals were 20-30 dollars more expensive. So got some tickets and off we went.. here we go!
Stereosonic Festival Sydney 2010 @ Sydney Showgrounds: Saturday 27th November
Assessment Time: 02:00PM – 11:00PM
Opening Hours: 12:00PM – 11:00PM
Lockout: Entry at anytime.
Passouts: No passouts at all.
Address: Sydney Showgrounds, Olympic Park. Basically walk out of Olympic Park station, walk down to the road and turn right.
Venue Website: http://www.sydneyshowground.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.stereosonic.com.au
Occurrence: Once a year.
Outside Line: It probably took longer to queue in the train station to get out rather than queuing to get scanned to get in – aka there was plenty of people to scan you in. There was only one person in front of me when I was going in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: There is no dresscode, you can pretty much wear anything. Most people wore causal gear and every person here also wears sunnies. It’s a necessity. Taking your shirt off is frowned upon especially in the moshpit areas. Police were ordered to refuse entry to anybody not wearing a shirt upon entry. It didn’t matter as heaps of guys were walking around inside with their shirts off, albeit they almost all had shirts tucked away somewhere just in case they were asked to put them back on. In terms of costumes – there were the Mario brothers, a dude in a a full body red spandex suit thing, a dude walking around with a twister board around his neck, and Lil Jon. It was either me or there wasn’t much creativity in terms of dressing up. I was forced to take my outfit off before entering the venue. See more for details below.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $120 1st release, $125/130 second, $135 3rd and final release.
Inside: Basically if you have been to the Easter show here at Homebush, its all the areas converted to DJ areas. There were 7 stages including the main Stereosonic stadium itself. 2 of the rooms were enclosed, and the other 5 were in open plan areas. Needless to say all had large capacities. Thank god the weather held up today. There was surprisingly no silent disco area, despite some other cities having it. Complete setup at the website PDF map
Cloak Room: $3. This is probably the only fairly priced thing here today
Bar Prices / Line: Bar lines went very quickly if you went to the right ones. Some bars had massive long lines eg the ones outside Creamm stage, but other ones barely had anybody lining up, and you could just walk straight to the bar eg the bar outside Carl Cox stage near the DJ Hero playing area. Pricing was $9 for a Middie of Smirnoff. A total blatant rip off!!! Previous festivals had them at $10.50 for full strength Smirnoff black and we are hit with Middies. Stupid angry alcoholics who ruin it for everyone. Even so, its still a rort and a half – I didn’t feel the effects at all from the drinks.
DJs: Tiesto, Calvin harris, Sebastian Ingrosslo, Benny Benassi, Wiley, Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Andy Murphy, Carl Cox, TV Rock and more. Complete line up found on the PDF map .. with about 50 acts listed
Music Style: Mostly Soft/Uplifting Trance, Dance, Electronic, various different House styles of music here.
Crowd & Ratio: Mostly Anglo-Saxon crowd. Pretty much an even ratio here all around.
Entertainment: Besides the main stages, there was a DJ Hero play area, a riding bull, human ten pin bowling (you are strapped inside a huge inflatable bowling ball) a passion pop photography area, food stalls, water cool down areas. There were also some amusement rides.
Atmosphere: Pretty good/vibrant everywhere. Early on before 6PM most stages were at about half capacity or less. Browntown, OneLove and Sneakerpeeps stages experienced it the worst, where no more than 30 or 40 people would be dancing there at the same time. Of course, these were the smallest stages. I’m not into the Carl Cox style of funky house, but the people there who were into that really enjoyed themselves, and there were plenty of them. Main arena was atrociously packed near the mosh pit, and I never got a chance to go inside (they actually have a sealed off moshpit area here, quite generous in size). Outrage was openly busy throughout the day thanks to its location right next to the entry gate. Also Cream(field) stage was also full of patrons throughout the day and night, you couldn’t go wrong here. Tiesto atmosphere fizzled after a stage power blackout near the beginning of the set. Very unfortunate.
Video: Ten pin bowling
Stereosonic main stage during Calvin Harris set – just before Tiesto
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