The largest EDM festival in Asia: how Indonesia’s Djakarta Warehouse Project just keeps growing

With this year’s event to feature the likes of Flume and Tiesto and expected to top 2016’s record-breaking crowds, the Djakarta Warehouse Project has become a titan of the region’s dance music scene – but chance played its part

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DJ Hardwell plays to a huge crowd of dance music fans at Djakarta Warehouse Project 2016.

Published: 6:03pm, 26 Sep 2017Updated: 8:09pm, 27 Sep 2017

The Djakarta Warehouse Project (DWP) started out in 2008 as a mid-sized annual music festival that took place in and around Jakarta’s popular nightclubs. But in 2010, two people were killed in a brawl at a club due to host the festival, resulting in the venue’s closure. With less than two weeks before the DWP event was due to take place, the organisers were forced to find an alternative venue – and fast.

“We wanted to deliver on what we promised,” Christian Rijanto, co-founder of festival organiser Ismaya Live, told the Post. “It was a pretty stressful moment for us.”

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After much searching, they found a venue at Carnaval Beach Ancol in northern Jakarta. The ocean-side arena and beach turned out to be perfect for a large-scale dance music event.

Rijanto admits the situation turned out to be a blessing in disguise. “If that incident didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have had enough push to make Djakarta Warehouse Project what it is today,” he says. “That’s when DWP as a large-scale festival was born.”

Today, DWP has the largest per day attendances of any dance music festival in Asia. In 2016, the festival broke its own record by attracting more than 45,000 electronic dance music (EDM) lovers for each of its two days, beating other heavy-hitting dance music gatherings such as Ultra Japan. Organisers expect this year’s event – at the Jakarta International Expo centre (the festival’s home since 2014) from December 15 to 16 – to set another record.