Usually when music festivals get cancelled it’s because of poor ticket sales, promoter mismanagement, a lack of headliners, or plain old bad weather. We can say with confidence that it’s a pretty rare occurrence for a festival to get cancelled because it’s deemed too “sexy”.
Enter Kazantip. For those unfamiliar with the infamous Russian festival, it’s something of a phenomenon in the international dance community. Like Burning Man, it’s garnered a reputation as a wild free-for-all, with cheap alcohol, ubiquitous bikinis, and few behaviour restrictions.
Long story short, it’s not really for the conservative crowd. Especially when you consider that the festival can go for as long as six continuous weeks, with the music pumping 21 hours a day and people revelling during much of that time, seemingly unaware that they’ve been awake for a fortnight.
While the festival was traditionally held in Crimea, unrest in the region saw Kazantip finding a new home in nearby Georgia in 2014, where the festival did not prove popular with locals. It forced organisers to move the festival once again, jetting over to Cambodia’s Koh Puos Island for 2015.
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However, organisers don’t seem to have made any friends in Cambodia either. The festival was almost cancelled earlier this month, with authorities citing their concern over potentially “sexy activities, including sexy dancing, having sex in public and gambling” taking place at the festival.
Provincial Governor Chhit Sokhom eventually allowed the festival to go ahead, but on the provision that punters and organisers respect local customs. It seems he’s now changed his mind, as the festival has been officially cancelled on the day it was slated to kick off.
As The Cambodia Daily reports, Kazantip has been shut down by police, with officials citing “indecent tourism” as their reason for putting the kibosh on the festival. Military police have been deployed to block the bridge linking Koh Puos Island to the mainland.
“Provincial authorities have totally cancelled the Kazantip concert on Koh Puos and now we have deployed our forces to block [the bridge],” said Provincial Deputy Governer Chhin Seng Nguon. “Our principal focus is on ecotourism and cultural tourism and we don’t need indecent tourism.”
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Organizer Nikita Marshunok has taken to social media to share a cryptic statement on the situation, writing, “I could tell a lot, but this story still has no end. Yes, the final can be good and not so good. And while we can influence the script, we do everything and even more.”
“Please understand this. If someone’s patience is ending, I understand this too. Yes, I clearly understand that there are chances to bury the whole history of Z or give birth to something really new. IT may be the most beautiful, the warmest, coziest home and craziest to … or the last one.”
“It seems to me here and now on the edge of the Earth have gathered not strangers to each other and they know exactly why they have been traveling thousands of miles. I hope not only for music, but above all for communication and energy.”
“You will get me very upset if you are bored with each other on the other side of the bridge, etc. as long as we are fighting for the life of the project, for which I have spent my life and strength, the talent of hundreds of others. Let all us be not sad a little more. Lets it be as we want, because we don’t want anything bad.”
