Tag
Vietnam
Electronic music in Vietnam: Saigon and Hanoi clubs, Da Nang beach parties and a scene growing faster than its licensing.
39 articles
Vietnam's House and Techno Scene, Explained: What's Happening in Hanoi and Saigon Right Now
Savage Hanoi lost its villa to a government redevelopment, and Saigon's longest-running club closes this month too. What's replacing them, and where to actually hear house and techno in Vietnam right now.
Di Linh Has Lost Two Home Clubs in One Year, and She's Still DJing in Hanoi
Savage shut down on New Year's Day. The Observatory in Saigon closes at the end of this month. Hanoi's Di Linh built her whole career inside those two rooms, and she's still booked.
Southeast Asia's Legal Drinking Ages: Where You Can Drink at 18, and Where It's 21
Cambodia has no enforced drinking age at all. Malaysia will fine a bar for serving a 20-year-old. A country-by-country breakdown of where Southeast Asia sets the line, and the law behind each number.
Petar Dundov Headlines a Tokyo Techno Night With Hanoi's Yanes on the Bill
Hanoi party series HUM's co-founder Yanes joins Croatian techno veteran Petar Dundov on VENT Tokyo's October 17 bill, a small but concrete sign that Vietnam's underground scene is starting to travel.
Thailand Still Sells Legal Weed With a Doctor's Prescription, While the Rest of Southeast Asia Bans It Outright
Thailand's weed shops are still open, but a 2025 law now requires a doctor's prescription to buy legally, and the rules get far stricter the moment you cross into a neighboring country.
Thailand and Vietnam Ban Vaping Outright: What You Can (and Can't) Smoke in Southeast Asia's Clubs
Southeast Asia's six biggest clubbing countries split evenly on vaping: Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore ban it outright, and Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines sell it legally. The law, country by country.
Snug's Queer Night Takes Over The Observatory for One of Its Last Saturdays Before Ho Chi Minh City's Techno Landmark Closes
The Observatory, Ho Chi Minh City's 13-year house and techno club, closes at the end of October. On the 10th, it hands the night to Snug, a queer party with a drag set from Peach.
Epizode, the Festival That Made Phu Quoc Vietnam's Biggest Dance Floor, Has Been Dark for Six Years
Carl Cox, Peggy Gou and Nina Kraviz all played Epizode's eleven-day beach festival on Phu Quoc. Its last edition ran in January 2020, and nobody ever said why it didn't come back.
Savage, Studio Lam and Thugshop: Why Southeast Asia's Clubs Keep Closing
Hanoi's Savage lost its site to a government opera-house project. Bangkok's Studio Lam closed on its own terms. A city-by-city look at why Southeast Asia's most important clubs keep disappearing, and what replaces them.
DJ WAAI's Người Nhà Collective Built Saigon's House Music Home on a Rooftop
Twenty-six floors above District 3, DJ WAAI, Dekay and Fanglanx turned a sky bar called HỢP 合 into Ho Chi Minh City's steadiest house music residency, and WAAI is already running a second room.
Argy and Adam Beyer Turned Vietnam's Independence Palace Into a Dancefloor
Argy and Adam Beyer turned Ho Chi Minh City's Independence Palace, the building a tank crashed through to end the Vietnam War, into a 4,000-person dancefloor on October 2, the only Southeast Asian date on Argy's NEWORLD tour.
Boiler Room and Keep Hush Have Only Filmed Four Southeast Asian Cities So Far
Boiler Room has broadcast from Southeast Asia four times total: Manila in 2017 and 2023, Bangkok's Maho Rasop festival in 2022 and 2023. Keep Hush has quietly filmed more cities with less reach. Here's where to actually watch the region's DJ culture for free, and where nobody has pointed a camera yet.
The Digital Nomad's Guide to Southeast Asia's House and Techno Scene: Canggu, Chiang Mai and Saigon
Thailand's Destination Thailand Visa, Indonesia's E33G and Vietnam's 90-day e-visa grey zone each come with a different idea of how long you can stay and how you're allowed to live. Here is where the laptop crowd actually goes out once the cafes close, from Canggu's bar-hop sprawl to Chiang Mai's scattered basement rooms to Saigon's ask-around scene.
BUTO BAYANG Named Itself After an Indonesian Ghost. Now Bandung and Hanoi Are Getting Booked in Berlin.
A Berlin party turned label turned two-person mission, run by a half-Indonesian producer and a Vietnamese-German DJ, put Bandung's Ambrukt and Amsterdam's TWIENA on the same compilation as Hong Kong's Shanda. The founders spent 2025 touring Bali, Bangkok and Hanoi and came back with a complaint: European DJs keep flying to Southeast Asia to play, and the region's own DJs still can't get a booking back.
John Talabot Plays One of the Last Nights at Saigon's Observatory
The Observatory closes at the end of October after nearly thirteen years and three addresses in Ho Chi Minh City, but not before letting Barcelona's John Talabot headline one of its last parties on October 2nd.
Nhạc Gãy Named Itself "Broken." Its Saigon Raves Now Fund Vietnam's Mental Health Awareness.
Nhạc Gãy means "broken" in Vietnamese. The Saigon collective built a non-profit label, an unpaid five-person crew and a mental health podcast on that word, and its Bandcamp catalog is still growing.
Da Nang Underground Has Thrown Weekly Techno Since 2019. Airtime Asia Just Found the City It Built.
A beach city known for seafood restaurants and package tours has had a real techno collective throwing weekly nights since 2019. This August a radio festival with Ken Ishii on the bill finally noticed.
Charlotte de Witte's New EP Funds a Global Fight for Club Culture. Southeast Asia Already Knows the Stakes.
Every euro from Charlotte de Witte's new EP goes to a nonprofit fighting to keep clubs open worldwide. Its own research points straight at Bangkok and Vietnam.
Stargazing Records Turned a Vietnamese Pilgrimage Poem Into a House Hit. Damian Lazarus Played It in Ibiza.
The Ho Chi Minh City label just quietly dropped release number 25. Its earlier fusion of Vietnamese folk poetry and house music has already reached Buddha-Bar compilations and Damian Lazarus's Ibiza sets.
Ho Chi Minh City's Observatory Closes in October. Hanoi Gets One Last Night With It on September 25.
The Observatory, one of Ho Chi Minh City's longest-running clubs, shuts for good at the end of October. Five weeks out, founding resident Dan Lo takes its sound north for a takeover at Hanoi's Unmute.
Wonderfruit Picked December on Purpose: How Monsoon Season Shapes Southeast Asia's Clubbing Calendar
Bangkok floods in August, Bali has its best month, and the Philippines braces for typhoons. Here's how the region's promoters actually plan around three overlapping monsoon systems.
Beyond White Party Bangkok: Where Southeast Asia's Queer House and Techno Scene Actually Lives
White Party Bangkok just became the first LGBTQ+ festival on DJ Mag's Top 100. The region's actual queer house and techno underground is smaller, harder to Google, and runs through Bangkok, Manila, Saigon and Singapore instead.
Bung L0n Turned Saigon's Most Mocked Music Into a Queer Safe Space
A Ho Chi Minh City collective started out playing techno like everyone else. Then it decided the wedding-tent, TikTok-background music its parents' generation looks down on was exactly what its queer dancefloor needed.
Nha Trang and Phu Quoc Nightlife: Where House and Techno Actually Happen
Forget the resort-strip EDM: Nha Trang's real scene is a single rooftop promoter, Phu Quoc's is a hilltop bar that's run since 2012, and the festival that put the island on the map hasn't confirmed a comeback.