Features
Go Southeast, Young Man
With favorable latitudinal position, several Southeast Asian countries are holding major music festivals this season, taking advantage of the availability of artists from all over the world.
The fifth annual Culture One event, called Bangkok’s International Outdoor Dance Music Festival, took place the weekend of Nov. 17 at Bitec in the Thailand capital, which happens to be an indoor venue.
Among the more than 30 acts were 808 State Dash Berlin and several members of Happy Mondays performing as a separate unit. Normally, 15,000-20,000 people show up for the 12-hour concert.
The following weekend is Urbanscapes in Kuala Lumpur, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. A multimedia event spread over two days, it features music, visual art, fashion and design produced both domestically at the grassroots level and internationally.
The main musical draw this year is Sigur Ros and the organizers expect a crowd of 12,000.
Then, ZoukOut takes place Dec. 7-8 in Singapore, which with its bustling business culture has one of the largest budgets of any festival in Southeast Asia. This year’s roster includes Major Lazer A-Trak , Above & Beyond , Hardwell and Calvin Harris distributed among four stages.
It’s the 12th year for the festival and 30,000 are expected to show up.