Future Zoukouts may still be held on Sentosa's beach

Channel NewsAsia 9 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: Singapore's top 12-hour non-stop dance music festival is likely to stay on the beach in Sentosa.

There had been talk that Saturday night's Zookout was the last time it would be held on the island due to new developments on the waterfront.

But Zouk said it had been asked to see how new facilities on the beach could be fused with the clubbing event.

Tracy Phillips, Marketing Manager of Zouk, said: "We've got our fingers crossed because we got a last-minute call from Sentosa and I think they're trying their best to see how they can make the attractions along the beach work into Zoukout. I don't know if it's going to work, but we hope so.

"We hope that if there are other partners involved, they would let us do our thing and hopefully they won't eat into too much space."

The annual dance music festival features four different dance arenas, taking up 56,000 sq feet of space on Silosa Beach.

It also has other ways for clubbers to have fun outside the dance floor.

Even though Zoukout is only 7 years old, it has attracted its fair share of fans from around the world.

More than one third of the clubbers come from outside Singapore, from as far as Dubai, the UK and even France, making Zoukout one of the top clubbing parties in Asia.

"We hope that there would be ample sections in the beach for us to use because we really, really don't want to scale it down. We've got to such a point where we made it such a big event. To do an event of this scale, to include four music tents so that the music doesn't overlap, to make sure there's enough party space for everybody, you really need that kind of area – 56,000 sq feet is just not enough, we need more," said Phillips.

Inga Voss, a German working in Singapore, said: "Where I come from, we don't have beach parties at all because of the climate. It's too cold to have (one), so it's somewhat special for me, in particular. And I enjoy it very much."

Khalid Alexander Semper, a tourist from New York, said: "I've partied in South America, London, Amsterdam, New York, and this may be one of my top five experiences of all time. And the fact that it's going to go into 8am, I'm hoping I can stay up till 8am."

Organisers said this year's Zoukout took about six months, 400 people and S$1.5 million to put together – the highest amount since it was first held in the year 2000.- CNA/so

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