SATURDAY 1 | People of a certain persuasion insist the place is haunted. Others take one look and think: ‘PARRRRRTAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!’ So it is that the long-abandoned Riverside Hotel, which when you’re scrambling over mountains of long-unslept-on mattresses bears an eery resemblance to the Overlook in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, is to harbour life once more – albeit briefly. For one night only, the building’s otherwise deserted (save for the odd spook) ballrooms will swell with the sound of at least 10 international DJs and thousands of ravers – potentially saving the owners a small fortune when they finally unleash the wrecking ball next month to make way for something less Jack Nicholson-esque (bring your own sledgehammer?). Giving sermon at the lectern of sound will be DJ Devin (globetrotting Swiss-Indonesian psyche guru), Bart Ricardo (credited with bringing Chicago house to Belgium in the late ’90s) and Il Toro (classically trained Italian musician/minimal techno DJ who now lives on a remote beach in Thailand). Joining them are local likely lads Simon C Vent, Funkelastiks, Dr Wah-Wah, Wes-T, Dan Beck of the Kimchi Collective, Alan Ritchie and, last but not least, DJs Flo and Lefty in a full-on head-to-head. Seven floors, 180 rooms; hundreds of disused mini bars and mattresses: it’s all yours for the night. Literally: they’re braced to rage until long past dawn. You can check out any time you like, but will you want to leave?
WHO: Underground ravers of every hue
WHAT: Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming (WILD) DJ party
WHERE: Riverside Hotel, #1 Sisowath Quay (cnr St. 94)
WHEN: 10pm February 1
WHY: RED RUM! RED RUM! RED RUM!