Singapore’s homegrown dance music festival ZoukOut 2013 attracted a record crowd of 41,000 over the weekend. (Straits Times Photo: Chew Seng Kim)
Singapore — The ZoukOut 2013 home-grown dance music festival registered its largest crowd ever this weekend, attracting an estimated 41,000 mostly young adults over the two day event held at Siloso Beach, Sentosa in Singapore, according to organizers.
The festival is recognized as one of Asia’s largest dance music events, with last year’s attendance estimated at 40,000.
The first night of this year’s 13th annual edition of the beach party blowout lasted from Friday night at 8pm until Saturday morning at 5am, and featured headliners such as Dutch DJ Afrojack and American electro trio Krewella, with a crowd of some 15,000 on hand. There were more than 30 DJs performing at three stages throughout the beach.
The second night started at 8pm on Saturday and featured DJs such as Alesso from Sweden and Zedd from Germany, with a crowd estimated at 26,000 in attendance, according to reports.
Fire dancers and aerial dancers were featured at this year’s festival for the first time, as the Singaporean homegrown event competes with dance festivals held abroad.
ZoukOut is well-known in the party scene, attracting clubbers from all over Asia, and even dedicated party-goers as far away as Europe and North America, according to reports.
The festival’s stellar line up featured DJs from all over the world, as in previous years. DJ Afrojack, best known for his energetic dance anthem “Take Over Control”, performed on Friday night.
The DJ (real name Nick van de Wall), said: “The festival, the party, all the DJs, it’s just a very good vibe… It’s a different culture, so they party a little differently. They’re just a little bit more respectful and I like that. Everyone’s like ‘oh, hi, nice to meet you’, and everyone’s really nice.”
Security is a top priority for ZoukOut, with increasing concerns over mixing alcohol with large crowds.
Zouk marketing and events head Timothy Chia said, “We’re pretty good at making sure people don’t get up to too much heavy drinking and fighting, and security is really responsive.”
“Of course, it’s something that we’ll be looking out for, any groups which are unruly. But on the whole, crowds here are pretty well-behaved at ZoukOut.”
