PREVIEW

Beat Rock Fest
Friday July 1st
The biggest Beat Rock Fest ever featuring a line up of some of Indonesia’s finest underground acts including seminal Bandung rockers Koil who were featured in Time Asia magazine, fellow Bandung outfit Seringai, Yogjakarta’s art rockers PagiHari with their dynamite frontwoman, Bali’s very own Navicula, recently signed to Sony plus many many more. From 6pm – Midnight. Rock On.

Food Fest
Saturday July 2nd and
Sunday July 3rd
Now entering its third year, The Kuta Karnival Food Fest just keeps getting bigger and better. Adding another 24 stalls to last year’s figure of 32, the organizers are promising an enormous range of different taste experiences from around the globe – Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Italian, American, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian of course. “We’ve really worked hard to make this the most professional Food Fest so far. We have a full cleaning service, a strong security presence and a much stronger focus on health and safety,” says Nigel, one of the organizers.
Again taking place on the beachfront boulevard between Jl. Melasti and Jl Padma, there will be many more side activities than last year, including a dedicated Kids Zone with magic shows and clowns, free pony rides on the beach between 5-6.30pm, laser light shows and pyrotechnics. The stage is much bigger than last year and will feature bands like Soul Flip, Traffic Blues and, hopefully, Seurieus from Jakarta as well as fashion shows, and a bodybuilding exhibition.
As for the food, everything is being sold at cost price or a little over. The idea is to sample a cross section of the many food options that exist in and around Kuta and Seminyak, so most dishes will cost around 25K Rupiah. There’ll be seating for 600 people on the beach and more along the food strip itself.

Kuta Karnival Parade
& Closing Ceremony
Sunday 03 July
The final day of this year’s Kuta Karnival will see the streets of Kuta filled with carnivalesque colour as a series of decorative floats loaded with speakers and party people make their way along Jalan Pantai, Kuta, Jalan Melasti, Jalan Legian before looping back through Jalan Bakungsari and back into Jalan Pantai Kuta. There’ll be traditional dancers, musicians, big bikers, uni-cyclists models and more before it all reaches a climax with a grand Balinese dance at sunset to close the Karnival at the Legian Beach Stage followed by a firework show.

REVIEW

Saturday, June 25th
The Kuta Karnival Opening Ceremony
Bringing together everyone from local politicians to surf industry notables, the official opening of the 3rd Annual Kuta Karnival was a distinctively Balinese affair. Two gamelan orchestras sat on either side of a specially erected pavilion – one was local, but the other was made up mostly of non-Indonesians. They turned out to be from Cambridge Massachusetts from MIT no less…the future geniuses of America rockin’ the gamelan, who’d have thunk it?
There followed some traditional Balinese dance, beautifully executed against the backdrop of a glorious sunset, before the VVIPs and VIPs headed off to Discovery Kartika Plaza for a special Dinner…meanwhile on the beach, skate, surf & rock n roll took over.

“Bodiku” Bodybuilding Competition (sat & sun)
The fascination of the human body as sculpture (or Michelin man depending on how you look at it!) drew a healthy crowd as competitors from Bali and Australia flexed, strained, bunched and tensed their oiled up bodies. The man who fixed it up was none other than Komang Arnawa, Bali’s very own world champion body builder. After a brief karate demo plus Tarung Drajat (a popular new Indonesian martial art) the main event happened. Divided into weight classes, things kicked off with the 60kg boys – light but loaded with muscle and moved up from there. The event ended with Komang himself giving a special performance and also a certain Daniela O’Mara, the 2005 Garnd Prix Australian Champ, Rhythmic Gymnastic Champ of Slovakia and 2004 Australian Fitness Champion. Intimidated?? You should be…get to work on those buttocks…your buttocks, that is //gino++

Results:
Invitational:
1. Mark de Togni 2. Putu Wardika 3. Gus Mantra 4. Gusti Arya 5. Nyoman Riawan

Open Class 60kg:
1. Nengah Arsana 2. Lenju 3. Sapei

Open Class 65kg:
1. Pande 2. Putu Sridana 3. Nyoman Adi

Open Class 75kg:
1. Ketut Arnawa 2. Gede Asmara 3. Komang Ada

Saturday, June 25th
Volcom Wild In the Park
Volcom brought on the sickness on Saturday with a full on skate comp featuring 115 skaters, 99 from Indonesia (Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Malang, Padang and Bali). With a punk & rock-hop soundtrack booming from the stage, the kids went hard and here are the results...

Groms
1. Anggi 2. Donny 3. Itop 4. Dwix

Intermediate
1. Gung De – Bali 2. Dom-Dom 3. Agung 4. Pevy

Amateur
1. Reno Pratama 2. Padin (KL) 3. Yogi 4. Tony (California)

Best trick of the day :
Rino Herman – Padang (trick : kickflip boardslide)

Sunday, June 26th
Rip Curl Day
The second day of the Kuta Karnival and Rip Curl pulled out the stops to bring us a massive day out which ended up like some kind of ‘Wrapped Tour’ including as it did 3 deadly events – Surfing (Grom Search Pt.3) Skating (think Jakarta city kids going mental with their ollies and grinding them rails and ending up with faceplants) and live rock whipping up a storm. There was almost a riot when they started throwing out freebies. The Dissland came off all Ramones-like, Iceteru were three chaotic and insane skaters, while Navicula dropped their art-rock grunge-tronica. Pas Band took the limelight though with their alternative-psychedelic cult music. Anyone get a munch on that barbecue?? //gino++

Results:

Surf: Grom search under 16
1. Jackson Collin (Oz) 2. Josh Baxter (Oz) Raditya (Bali)

Skate:
1. Padin (Mal) 2. Indra Kubon 3. Agung 4. Tony Sruntul

Best Trick:
Padin (Mal) with Blunt slide