Sensation Melbourne NYE

On new years eve I welcomed the beginning of 2009 at Sensation, the self proclaimed “worlds leading dance event”. Sensation started in The Netherlands, being held at Amsterdam Arena. When I first stumbled across videos and music from the Amsterdam events several years back I was in awe of a dance party that managed to pull 40,000 people. Well based on what I saw at Tel$tra Dome I think they managed to pull off the same thing here. Seeing the stadium packed with so many people all dressed in white was truly awesome. The music did not disappoint either. However I think I had built up an expectation of more of a “performance” aspect to the event, as this didn’t seem to quite meet my expectations. Nonetheless a great night was had by all. Also special thanks to Hayden for using a number of his comped Deluxe tickets to get us in for free and skip the queue. Photos and movies from the night are on Flickr.

Leading up to Sensation the media had a field day in regard to a select minority that took a bad batch of GHB at the X-Qlusive event and ended up in hospital. Now taking GHB in the first place is stupid but the way it was reported was just reckless and inaccurate. Not only did they harp on about this minority but the Herald-Sun managed to attribute the overdoses to totally the wrong event: Christmas Kandy, which was cancelled as a result. In the days leading up to Sensation I heard a news report on TV refer to Sensation as, “controversial” and you could tell they were just waiting for a repeat of what happened at X-Qlusive. Funnily enough it seemed that everyone at Sensation was very well behaved as I didn’t hear or see a single report in the following days about any drug related problems (no news is good news?). I think its a great win for the people and the rave scene that the media didn’t get what they wanted. Especially considering it probably the biggest “rave” type event to ever be held in Melbourne.

I hope to see it held again next year as I’m certainly up for going again. Who knows maybe they’ll bring Sensation Black here as well.