Can the 2022 version of Escape Into Park capture past glories?
IF YOU loved your dance music and loved to party, Escape Into The Park was the place to be every summer.
What started out as a small festival in the 1990s grew into something huge, with some of the biggest names in electronic dance music (EDM) heading to Singleton Park. The beats were phat, the outfits were loud and the smiles of the crowd were 60 miles wide.
One of Escape Into The Park’s organisers Danny Slade said the event was an instant success and saw huge international names fly in to perform.
“It meant a lot to Swansea, and it meant a lot to Wales and the UK,” he said. “We had what was regarded as one of the superclubs in Britain and we got people from all over Europe coming here.
“We had some huge bookings back then – the biggest we had was Tiësto. We actually flew to Amsterdam to personally ask him if he would play. We put our hearts and souls into it.”
Over the years, Escape Into The Park grew from a 5,000-capacity festival to a 25,000-capacity festival, and many dance acts and DJS say it gave them the platform they needed to break into the dance music industry.
One DJ who performed at the festival in its early days, Jason P, said performing at the event gave him the big break he needed. “It basically put me on the map,” he said.
“After that, my career really escalated and I rose through the ranks. It was something every clubber had on their calendar every year.”
After a decade without Escape, the festival emerged from the ashes and made an epic comeback last September after being originally postponed due to Covid, and it’s set to be revived again this summer when more than 10,000 people are expected to attend the event on Saturday, August 20.
So to get you in the mood, we had a trawl through our archives and found these snaps . . .