Carlsberg's Where's the Party 2013 | Recap & review

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WTP Asia 2013 in Malaysia not as epic as previous instalments but still a decent night out

If you're a party-goer or a young Carlsberg fan in Malaysia, you'd likely know about Where's The Party? (WTP) by now. Those who've been to the preceding editions of WTP may probably say that this fourth instalment was only "okay" or just simply disappointing. Nobody I know would compliment by saying that it was "epic" or "fucking awesome". But why? Did the Party actually suck? Well, the answer's simply yes and no. It's difficult to just tell you based on "overall", if there's even such a thing at all for events like this. So read on.

Where's the Party IV Asia was held on July 6th 2013 at the Malaysian Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS) in the state of Selangor. For the first time, the meeting point itself was where the Party was. Initially, when the few bloggers and myself arrived, we were still wondering where the Party's actually gonna be because in the previous occasions, the attendees were only informed about where the meeting point was and had buses to transit everyone from there to the secret location. There was a transit this time as well, but only from the car park to another area within the same place.

The theme was jet plane so as we entered the Party, there were mock metal detectors with the stewardesses checking the attendees' bodies. But even after entering the area, we were still confused and wondering if we'd be transited to elsewhere. I've to admit, I was very disappointed to find out that MAEPS itself was the venue of WTP IV. After being informed that it'd only be a one-day event without hotel accommodation like the first WTP and last year's, I believe most of the attendees were only hoping that it'd be better than WTP II, which was held at the Carlsberg Brewery in Shah Alam in 2011 (if my memory serves me right).

WTP II which happened just 6 months after the first ever WTP was very carnival-like. There were hot air balloon ride, mini-pirate ship ride, multiple carnival games, point-system with prizes to giveaway and many more other stuffs which made it a fun outing despite the little rain. In this year's WTP, there were new party games instead - Loud Ludo, Marshall Matters, No-Sight Flight, Turbalance and Safety Slides. There was also the mobile site created for the for the attendees to socialise, post on their social media channels and to take on the "Be Bold" challenges to win passes to the global WTP featuring Axwell that'll be happening in Europe but unfortunately, the mobile site wasn't able to function properly on Blackberry so I was completely left out on this activity. Apparently it didn't work out for some non-Blackberry users as well. The only two things that were brought back from previous WTP's were the foot massage and the i-Darts, two of which that had the most people queuing up for actually. If I were to compare the extra activities department, I would have to say that I liked WTP II's more. The reason why I'm only comparing these two instalments is 'cause I wasn't at the first WTP and i-Darts was the only noticeable game to me in last year's WTP III.

Now let's talk about the food a bit. After last year's WTP, I was actually expecting good foods or at least a similar set-up of food stalls but unfortunately for this time there were only simple readily made common foods (mee hoon, nasi lemak, Ramli burger, nuggets, satay) that had gone cold by the time it got there. The satays were long gone by the time I came out of the press conference and it wasn't restocked. However, I saw comments on Carlsberg's Facebook Page saying that the post-party "lok lok" (steamboat) supper was actually "the best thing of the entire night". Well too bad I didn't stay till then, I guess. The best thing for me, besides the free flow of course, was the stewardesses. Must be the sexy uniform.

The doors opened for the 3,000 attendees at around 6pm and the performances in the hall started at around 8pm with local superstar comedian Douglas Lim entertaining everyone with his most popular act that even I wasn't bored of yet. The artist lineup, as you can see from the photo up top, were Nine Lives, Joel Turner, 3AM in the Valley and Big Skrptz from Australia, Korean Pop dance group Sweety, DJ Inquisitive, DJ Miss Nine who hails from Germany, DJs Clazz and Ming Ming.

DJ Miss Nine is such a beautiful woman. My goodness... just look at that face. What a pretty face! Hands down the best looking music performer of the night.

The Korean female dance group, on the other hand, was not as eye-catching as last year's group, Love Cubic. When all they do are dancing and lip syncing to other people's songs, they've got to look hotter and show more skin than this. But oh well, at least it ain't an annoying Korean boy band.

The setup of the stage was all right, nothing overly fancy. Great lighting works. The white balloons with LED's on the ceiling were pretty cool although a bunch of them fell down. I also loved how spacious the hall was despite having large crowd. The sound management for non-DJ performers, however, was a bit poor. I dunno if it was only where I was standing but when the cover band 9 Lives was playing, I couldn't hear the live vocals clearly and when the bassist played his solo (slapping the strings and all), it couldn't be heard at all. When the rappers (sorry, don't know which ones are their names) rap, I couldn't hear a single word clearly but in this case, I'm sure if it was the performers' fault or the mic and sound system's.

There's this new Drink Responsibly initiative which, perhaps, forced the free flow to end at 10pm and the performances to finish by 1-ish. The latter was probably due to a rule enforced by the government but I don't agree with ending the free flow that early 'cause I feel that it'd only make the people drink faster and hence even more likely to get drunk. Taxis were only on standby after 11.30pm but the event staffs were at the car park exit to ensure that the early leavers like myself weren't too intoxicated to drive home safely. I left after making use of the beer coupon that was given out to redeem a one last beer after the free flow ended. I would've stayed if the music acts after 10pm weren't just DJ's but I can't complain 'cause majority of party-goers have the same taste. It's a democratic country... right?

T-shirts were given out at the entrance but I left mine under the table and totally forgotten about it. They should've given them out when people were leaving instead of when they were entering. It's kinda troublesome to carry it around while drinking, dancing and fooling around. I like the design though. Thankfully a fellow blogger and friend spare me one of the few he found lying around at the end of the event.

When I was queuing up for the foot massage, I actually overheard the people behind me saying that they feel the Party this time's a bit "pariah" and that their friends have already left at 7pm. Later on I found out that some of the bloggers that I know have already left too. On Carlsberg's Facebook Page, most people complained about why there wasn't Headhunter in the lineup as promised but I can't relate to that issue 'cause I've no idea who Headhunter is. Some went as far as saying that WTP 2013 was cheap and a complete epic fail. You know what, these people were just too harsh and were taking free flow events for granted. What other party they went to recently that was so much better than this, I wonder?

Yes, Where's the Party IV has indeed "jatuh standard" (dropped standard) a bit on this occasion but if we don't compare it with the previous WTP's, it was still a good event. And with the right people and a few hours of free flow, it's quite difficult to actually have a bad experience at any party at all.

The question here is whether or not Carlsberg Malaysia could top the previous WTP's or at least meet the expectations of those who've been to the first three instalments. And if they managed to organise a better event than the best WTP we had thus far (which many felt the first one was by far the best), will the instalment after that be able to follow and maintain the high level of epicness? As a fan of Carlsberg and WTP, I really hope they could. The bar they set was too damn high.