Our Top Pick of Weird & Wonderful DJ Destinations
Our Top Pick of Weird & Wonderful DJ Destinations
A 15- minute drive from Dubai Marina, Soul Beach at the JA Resort is the ideal location for our Ibiza Global Radio 95.3 Beach Festival. Why? Because it has Ibiza vibes you won’t find elsewhere without hopping on a plane. And we think that’s pretty cool. As DJ destinations go, Soul Beach has got it going on.
DJ destinations are certainly becoming increasingly adventurous. With lockdown sets a fading memory, more and more DJs are playing in weird and wonderful places. It’s fair to say DJs are going all out to spin in unique locations these days. We pick five of the best – from the beautiful to the bizarre and from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Suat
Over the Skies at Snowbombing
Set among snow-capped mountains in Austria, Snowbombing offers a beautiful DJ destination tinged with the bizarre. DJs play in a range of unusual venues as part of this long-running festival – from igloos to the local butcher’s shop. But Suat went one better. With a DJ console strapped to his body, this ‘mobile’ DJ pops up in some random places – and he’s not always welcome. Head over to his socials to laugh at him being chased out of shopping malls or facing off with bemused police officers. Lately, the crazy character DJed while kayaking along Amsterdam’s canals as baffled tourists looked on. And in our favourite stunt yet, he DJed while paragliding off a mountain at Snowbombing. Legend or lunatic? You decide.
Ben Bohmer
In a Hot Air Balloon
Who can forget Ben Böhmer’s beautiful sunrise set from a hot air balloon above Cappadocia, in Turkey? First broadcast in September 2020, the German DJ and producer’s set for Cercle provided welcome respite from the Covid-19 madness ravaging the world at the time. While Böhmer’s set is magical, the Cercle crew’s deft camera work beautifully captures the serenity of hot air balloons in flight. It’s been viewed over 21 million times and counting.
David Guetta
The Burj Al Arab Helipad
David Guetta has played many special gigs in Dubai but his 2021 live stream from the Burj Al Arab helipad tops the lot. Part of his #UnitedAtHome gig series, the French superstar’s set atop the iconic building helped raise millions of dollars for charity. His music missed the mark for us but with an incredible light show and Dubai glittering against the night sky, the gig was an incredible spectacle nonetheless.
Nastia
A Former Soviet Radar Station in Chernobyl
Long before the war in Ukraine, techno DJ Nastia tried to throw the spotlight on her home country by flipping the script. For her Scary Beautiful audiovisual project, launched in 2020, Nastia DJed in a number of “unique and scarily fascinating locations” within Ukraine. The point of the exercise? To introduce unreleased tracks from new music producers and encourage viewers to see parts of the world “from a perspective that is so frightfully enchanting”. Nastia’s eerie DJ destinations included a huge steel factory, an allegedly haunted deserted fort, an iron ore quarry and the foreboding Soviet radar station Duga, in Chernobyl 2.
Bedouin
The Rose City, Petra
When the Cercle team asked the Bedouin lads where they’d like to DJ, Tamer Malki and Rami Abousabe had one answer. They chose the Rose City, in Petra – the original land of the Bedouin. One of the most breathtaking DJ destinations in the series yet, the Rose City is also one of the Ancient Wonders of the World. Needless to say, it took some time to pull this one off – years, in fact. Tamar and Rami finally presented their music at this incredible historic location earlier this year.
Soul Beach
Beach Life
Back on home soil – or should we say, sand – Soul Beach aligns with our idea of glorious DJ destinations. Don’t miss Steve Bug, the Mambo Brothers and Armonica headlining our Ibiza Global Radio 95.3 Beach Festival there on Saturday 14th May. With tickets from just AED150, come and see why this venue ticks all our boxes and dance on the sand with the friendliest crowd in town.