We got the white right
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Sensation's Ocean of White party pulls 10,000 pasty party people into Impact
You get 10,000 people all dressed in white packed into Impact Arena for a party and you know it’s one of the highlights of the Bangkok clubbing year.
That was the case last Saturday for the debut of what will hopefully become a series of massive Sensation dance theme parties, a phenomenon that’s spread across the world from the Netherlands.
Everywhere Sensation goes, the inaugural event is always the “Ocean of White” theme, where everyone has to dress primarily in white. Impact was tooled out with geysers, a catwalk, revolving DJ booths, giant screens and – to remind you the world was now underwater – jellyfish bobbing about.
In a city where dressing according to themes is never taken completely seriously, it was astonishing to witness a vast sea of white hopping to the thumping beats. If this was a test to see if Bangkok was willing to follow theme orders, we definitely got an A-plus.
The terrible traffic and heavy humidity that followed crazy rain earlier in the evening did nothing to dampen spirits. People were flocking in as early as 6pm, two hours ahead of the official kick-off, and the arena ended up throttle-full.
DJs Deniz Koyu, Fedde Le Grand, Riva Starr, the Man with No Shadow and Mr White took turns spinning electro, techie house on an elevated, revolving booth that let them interact with the crowd in every corner of the hall.
They had to compete for attention with riveting performances – girls in bikinis blowing bubbles, aerialists with fireworks strapped to their suits and dancing jellyfish-people. The sideshows kept the party engaging and showed that, at Sensation parties, DJs aren’t gods.
The sound and lighting was flawless. The hall was arranged so that getting to the toilets and getting inside and out was no problem. The only tricky part was getting a beer at the jammed-tight bars. Heineken’s going to need more bars next time, assuming there will be a next time.
And why not, seeing as all 10,000 tickets to the event were sold soon after it was announced?
Bangkok was the middle destination on Sensation’s first Asian tour. It opened with a bang in Seoul and was heading next to Taipei.
