Creamfields

As a last minute decision, a group of us (Maddie, Stan, Jimmy, and myself) and some of the local RIT Dubai students (Tito, Ahmed, and Ariel) decided to go to a concert called Creamfields in Abu Dhabi.  (I'm super slow on posting this, the concert was on Dec. 9th). It was a huge dance event with 15 live DJ’s, the most popular being David Guetta, Above and Beyond, and AfroJack.  To top it off, the concert was being held in Ferrari World, the brand new indoor theme park built by Ferrari. 

Start to finish, the trip ended up being almost 24 hours. Talk about a full day! To get tickets, we had to ride on the metro to the other side of the city to a Virgin Megastore in the Dubai Mall which was selling them in limited quantities.  When it was our turn in line to buy tickets, the cashier announced that there was only one ticket left.  Fortunately, he looked around for a couple minutes and was able to find an entire stack of them from under the counter.  Tickets purchased, we headed back with the intention of napping for a few hours and then taking a bus to Abu Dhabi.  Plans changed when one of the local students (Ariel) offered us a ride to the concert immediately after we got back to the dorm. I had enough time to change my shirt, then we hopped in the car and arrived at Ariel’s house around 8.  We weren’t there for long but it was a nice surprise to see the house decked out in Christmas decorations.  From there, we drove to Ferrari World on Yas Island which is essentially a tourist island.  

Upon entering the park, we were greeted with the sight of dancers dressed up/painted as leopards, which was pretty creepy. The first DJ's started at 6pm but the lack of people made it immediately obvious that we were early.  DJ’s were performing in 3 different stages from 6pm-3am.  David Guetta was listed to perform at 1:30.  After a few hours a lot more people showed up (25,000 total) and the better DJ’s started performing.  Another strange/interesting sight occurred about halfway through the night.  Dancers, this time wearing feathers, shimmied their way up 15 foot high poles. They put straps around their thighs to keep them from falling off and then raised a hollow cloth sphere (a Chinese lantern) up from the ground so that it completely cover their body so that only their head was sticking out.  They began swaying back and forth to the music so that the entire pole was bending.  I thought for sure the poles were going to snap at some point because, well, poles aren’t supposed to do that.

Some point around this time we were notified that David Guetta wouldn’t be performing until 3:00.  The night went on until 3:00 drew near.  3:00 came and went and we were notified that Guetta was running late. At some point around 4am, the screens flashed “Abu Dhabi, are you ready?” Some people started booing and rumors were going around that he wouldn’t show up.  Finally, at 4:30, David Guetta appeared on stage, said “Man, that was a long flight!," then proceeded to blow everyone’s minds with his DJing skills.  The crowd immediately forgot about his being late and everyone had a great time until 6am when he announced that the park would not let him perform any longer.  By this time, the sun was starting to rise and we were pretty tired.  We ended up driving back to Ariel’s house, calling a cab (which really ended up just being an Audi), and got dropped off at the bus stop to Dubai.  Tito used his bartering skills to get our group a good deal on a small taxi van that was parked near the buses.  Arriving at the dorms at 9am, I proceeded to pass out and woke up at 5pm that night. All in all, it was a great time!