All roads in Singapore led to Siloso Beach, Sentosa Island last December 11 for ZoukOut 10th Anniversary Party. For 10 years now, ZoukOut is considered as the biggest outdoor dance music festival in Asia with the venue spanning 56,000 square feet across the beach front. Celebrating 10 good years of music, dance and art, with party people from all over the globe in attendance, the annual event is also getting to be one of Singapore's highlights that time of the year.
One can choose according to one's “feel” from the three music arenas with different beats — Techno, House, Trance, Hip Hop, Electro, the homegrown Mambo Jambo and even Disco, Boogie and New Wave with of course the dream DJ line up headed by the very popular Tiesto and David Guetta. DJ Tiesto, who is undeniably acclaimed a great achiever in his field, grabbed several awards such as a Grammy nomination. He did the opening performance with an original composition for the Athens Olympics and countless remixes for the likes of The Killers, Yeahs and Bloc Party. Of course, he is also known as the DJ who has turned the playing of Trance music into an art form. On the other hand, French DJ David Guetta, considered as a multi-platinum artist and the "new king of pop", started out as a French House DJ before achieving three chart-topping albums to his name. He also holds a record for 70 million hits in You Tube for his videos.
The party officially started at 8pm and ended 8am the following day. But as early as 6:30 that evening, this writer took no chances and was already heading to Siloso Beach on board a cable car from Mount Faber after having an early dinner at Sapphire at the Jewel Box together with my very reliable and articulate tour guide Wilson Wong and a couple of Indonesian media, Arletha Sutopo and Astri Darmayanti. The idea of taking the cable car to Sentosa Island instead of my assigned Singapore Tourism Board van came from Wilson who realized that it was best for us to do that to avoid the traffic for at that time, everyone was already hitting the road to the same destination.
True enough, when we got to Siloso Beach, I was truly amazed with the sight! Thousands and thousands of young and not-so-young party people came in hordes! It was like seeing a sea of people. Judging from the thousands who were falling in line to get in, I was wondering how those people can fit in the venue and what time they can get in. Good for me and my companions, we were led to the VIP/media entrance which made it easier and faster for us to get in. Twenty thousand party faces of different nationalities were truly a welcome sight the moment we got in the main venue, all dancing to the beat, with camera flashes, flowing booze, neon and dancing lights here and there, the huge party scene was amazing! Amidst the "sea of people", we were comfortably accommodated by Miss Sujita of the Singapore Tourism Board at the VIP/media exclusive tent where we were served cocktails and were able to meet some VIPs and foreign and local media. The tent was just a few meters from Arena A where Tiesto and David Guetta played from 3am to 7am. Time flied so fast that it was time to leave and take a couple of hours to sleep to catch my 10:20am flight back home.
It was truly a memorable experience that I promised myself to make it to the ZoukOut 2011. For sure, by then, I will tag along my friends for them to experience the biggest beach music party in the region!
I would like to personally thank the Singapore Tourism Board through Marie Li for that unforgettable opportunity. God bless!