|
It’s no wonder that Singapore is the home to the best dance music festival in all of Asia, “ZoukOut” organized by the famous “Zouk Club”. Unlike Thailand, the government has liberalized a 24 hour entertainment licensing law and is actually helping to promote the nightlife scene in Singapore. Recently, Club’s such as Zouk have taken advantage over the region bringing in top International acts about once a week to play in their club, attracting not only the Singaporians but a wide range of tourists. Last year, “ZoukOut” sold over 15,000 tickets and around 30 percent of the visitors were tourists from the region. This year, ZoukOut surpassed last year’s event spending over $1.2 million on the event and attracting 18,000 punters. 
The famous Zouk club has been around for over 14 years and has recently spent $7 million dollars on a redesign where then entire club was rebuilt from scratch for a period of one month. Complete with a custom built $1 million sound system, upgraded lighting, and more floor space, Zouk is finding itself without competition. The club has 3 different sections all with different tunes and styles, such as the “Velvet Underground” which is known for playing more progressive and innovative music. This section is designed with velvet walls, a lounging area with velvet seats, and a nice sized dance floor space free of any table obstructions. However, the most notorious section of the club is the main hall, which fits approximately 2,500 clubbers and has a top walk around balcony to observe or order drinks at several bars. The dance floor is surrounded by 4 different speaker sets that gives you the sensation that the music is actually playing in your stomach. This section has weekly international acts, a bad ass sound system, and plenty of space for dancing, not to mention great visual lighting effects.
After talking to many clubbers about the nightlife, we found that any and everybody goes to Zouk Club regularly. However MOS Singapore has recently opened its doors and threatens to challenge Zouk. After interviewing a trusted source, MOS looks to have problems as the club is only a franchise and the people behind it have no experience in managing a nightlife venue. They also had no well known acts bokked for their grand opening and were always unsure about the opening date.
Whether MOS fails at stealing clients from Zouk or becomes a success doesn’t really matter, as this is just a sign of things to come. The Singapore government has taken the opposite approach to the Thai authorities, where they are actually promoting the nightlife scene. Mr Oliver Chong, Director of Event and Entertainment Cluster Development, Singapore Tourism Board, said “Iconic events such as ZoukOut contribute to Singapore’s image as a vibrant and exciting city with a pulsating nightlife that attracts visitors and locals alike. Over the years, Zouk has grown into a world-class brand name with strong international appeal. Its signature ZoukOut event last year attracted over 5,000 party-goers from countries such as Australia, Germany and Hong Kong. I’m sure visitors to the event this year will again not be disappointed by the stellar line-up of top artists.”
As last year, around 35 percent of punters for the annual ZoukOut party were tourists and most from the region countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China. This only spells success for the private sector which will be injecting over 60 million Singapore dollars into further developing the entertainment in Singapore.  Every year, Singapore’s biggest and most successful club “Zouk Club”orgainizes the largest dance party in Asia, dubbed ZoukOut. This year the massive beach party was held on Santosa Island, consisting of three DJ stages and one live band stage. Being held in Singapore, and for the 5th year running, the event was very well organized with an unbelievable DJ line up on almost every stage, and arranged so you could actually hear every DJ performance for at least 1 hour, then bounce off to another stage to catch another act. Unlike last year, Bangkok’s party people attended in full force where we was always running into familiar faces. Also something familiar was the vodka red bulls which was by far the best selling drink of the event and kept you running till the wee hours of the morning.
 The party opened its doors at 20:00 but didn’t start with the music performances till around 22:00, and then the stages started to fill up around 23:00. However once 24:00 hit, the party was in full force with people finally starting to dance as the musical vibe took control and rising alcohol levels made people a little less conservative. One of the only complaints about the event was the long queues for drink coupons and then queuing up again to order drinks. At one point, we were waiting about 1 hour before we actually got our red bull, but this was at the very popular main stage where Nick Warren was spinning to a full beach. Another downside to the beach event was the fact that the water access was blocked off to prevent anyone from taking a midnight bath. However it didn’t matter much in the end, as the rain started coming down around 3 am where the sober punters fled to shelter while the rest of us continued to dancing in the downpour. People didn’t seem to mind the cold, wet rain as the music just kept getting hotter with Sven Vath coming on stage at 5 am for a two hour set.
 Having drunken about 22 vodka red bulls and almost nonstop dancing for five hours, the morning somehow seemed surreal as the sun finally came up and no one seemed to notice. It wasn’t until 7:30 that we and about everyone else decided to call it a morning and catch a bus out of the park before the hoards of drunken people.
In the end, we can honestly say that Singapore and Zouk have really got their shit together with taste and organization. It might be possible for Thailand to pull off something similar in the future, only if the laws are changed, forgotten, or bent.
Zoukout 2005 Singapore Pictures Gallery
 |
