Heavy rain causes ZoukOut VIP tent to sink, crowd evacuated due to weather

Part of the flooring in a ZoukOut VIP tent sank over the weekend as heavy rains continued on the second night of the electronic music festival’s return.

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At around 2am on Sunday, December 4, police and event staff reportedly began ushering patrons out of the VIP tent and onto the beach after the floorboards seemingly sank, with a Straits Times reader submitting a picture of a table completely sunken into the sand, glasses and all.

The outlet also reported that the festival was evacuated at 5am on Sunday after a heavy rain warning flashed on the screens. ZoukOut was due to continue until 7am.

A spokesperson for Zouk told the outlet that the tent incident was a “minor issue”, adding that the tent itself had not collapsed. “There were no injuries and the event continued without incident or interruption,” they stated.

“There was a minor issue with the floor boarding which affected the experience of the attendees in that specific area, and in the interest of providing the best experience possible, we relocated the people impacted,” Zouk’s spokesperson told Straits Times.

The police have also confirmed to ST that officers who were alerted of the situation “established that there was an issue with a part of the platform”.

An attendee who was near the sunken section of the VIP tent also shared that patrons in that section were left without service for a considerable amount of time, telling the outlet, “They had no drinks, tables or chairs until after about one to 1½ hours, when the staff started moving the tables and sofas to the beach (outside the tent). I think if the incident was ‘minor’, they could have handled the situation better.”

Dutch DJ Tiesto’s performance on Sunday was also met with a mild hiccup, as a flame canister onstage caught fire for a brief moment but was swiftly put out. The DJ and producer shared a clip of the incident on social media.

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A post shared by Tiësto (@tiesto)

Held at the festival’s traditional home of Siloso Beach, Sentosa on December 2 and 3, ZoukOut 2022 featured the likes of Armin Van Buuren, Tiësto, Zedd, Gryffin, Cash Cash, Shiba San and more performing for a 30,000-strong turnout. This was also the first in-person edition of ZoukOut to be held since the festival went on hiatus following its 2018 event.

First held in 2000 with British DJ Dave Seaman and British-Canadian DJ Richie Hawtin as headliners, Zoukout has hosted Avicii, Martin Garrix, Dillon Francis, Claptone, Marshmello and many more leading up to the 2018 edition. The 2017 edition of ZoukOut notably hosted an 88rising stage takeover featuring Rich Brian, Higher Brothers, and Joji.

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