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The South African
4 days ago
- The South African
South Africa and Botswana ranked among the best countries in the world
Voted by thousands of Telegraph readers, the annual awards honour top destinations and cement South Africa's decade-long spot in the global top 10. South Africa's enduring popularity was highlighted by its diverse and attractive tourism offerings, from the cosmopolitan charm of Cape Town to the wildlife-rich Kruger National Park and the scenic Garden Route. Cape Town was particularly recognised not only for its striking landscape and culture but also ranked highly in the Telegraph's city-specific polls. In a separate accolade, Cape Town was also named the best city in the world for nightlife in the Times' 2025 Global Nightlife Report. The Mother City was praised for its eclectic nocturnal energy, blending gritty warehouse raves, glamorous rooftop lounges, and a signature soundtrack of Afro-house and amapiano that keeps both locals and travellers dancing until sunrise. Meanwhile, Botswana earned the 10th spot on the Telegraph's list, reinforcing its standing as one of the continent's most timeless and awe-inspiring travel destinations. While Botswana hasn't moved up in the rankings, its steady position reflects a consistent global admiration for its unspoiled wilderness and conservation-driven tourism. The Telegraph Travel Awards are an annual survey-based ranking run by The Telegraph (a major UK newspaper), where tens of thousands of its readers, both print subscribers and online users, cast votes across travel categories such as best country, city, airline, hotel group, and tour operator. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
Business Insider
24-07-2025
- Business Insider
South Africa, Botswana ranked among the best countries on earth
South Africa has been named the fourth-best country in the world for travel in the 2025 Telegraph Travel Awards, emerging as the highest-ranked African nation on the list. Business Insider Africa present the African countries ranked among the best on earth. The list is courtesy of Telegraph Travel Awards. South Africa's enduring popularity was highlighted by its diverse and magnetic tourism offerings. South Africa has been named the fourth-best country in the world for travel in the 2025 Telegraph Travel Awards, emerging as the highest-ranked African nation on the list. The award cements the country's reputation as a global tourism powerhouse and marks its continued presence in the top 10 for more than a decade. The annual awards, voted for by tens of thousands of Telegraph readers, celebrate the world's most beloved destinations. South Africa's enduring popularity was highlighted by its diverse and magnetic tourism offerings, from the cosmopolitan charm of Cape Town to the wildlife-rich Kruger National Park, and the scenic Garden Route. Cape Town, in particular, was recognised not only for its striking landscape and culture but also ranked highly in the Telegraph's city-specific polls. In a separate accolade, Cape Town was also named one of the world's 20 best cities for nightlife in the Times' 2025 global nightlife rankings. The South African city was celebrated for its eclectic after-dark energy, combining gritty warehouse raves, glamorous rooftop lounges, and a signature soundtrack of Afro-house and amapiano beats that keep both locals and visitors dancing until sunrise. Meanwhile, Botswana earned the 10th spot on the Telegraph's list, reinforcing its standing as one of the continent's most timeless and awe-inspiring travel destinations. While the country hasn't moved up the rankings, its steady position reflects a consistent global admiration for its unspoiled wilderness and conservation-driven tourism. At the heart of Botswana's appeal is the Okavango Delta, one of the world's largest inland deltas and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Known for its spectacular biodiversity and breathtaking landscapes, the delta draws nature lovers, photographers, and adventurers year after year. These are the top 10 countries in the world, according to The Telegraph New Zealand Japan India South Africa Greece Australia Peru The Maldives Costa Rica Botswana
Time of India
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Chennai's Youth Are Finding New Ways to Connect
Girls in lehengas and boys in sherwanis dance to traditional dhols with the baraat. Some are getting mehendi done in a corner, while the others are gorging on pav bhaji, biryani and pani puri. But something is missing — a bride and groom! Because this is a ' fake sangeet ' party. Whether it's watching the sunrise from a rooftop restaurant while being serenaded by soft music or dancing at a 'fake sangeet' with no bride or groom, Chennai is crafting new experiences for youngsters to make new friends and a space where they can find people whose interests align. Khushi Lunkar and her friends Thavina and Misha Jain of Vivah Viral say they missed the dazzle of weddings during the off-season. 'That's when we decided to host a fake sangeet, which had food, live music, baarat, DJ, free mehendi and glitter makeup booths, and return gifts with a priced entry,' says Khushi. Tradition al Tamil weddings don't have the concept of a sangeet, but it's slowly being adopted by the uber-rich, she says. Viral Vivah is gearing up for its upcoming fake sangeet event on July 18. Sruthii B, a fashion stylist, moved to Chennai from Madurai three years ago, but making friends was still a task. 'I began working immediately after college initially and so never had the opportunity,' she says. That changed the day she attended a party hosted by Private Society, a venture that organises close-knit private sober parties with coffee, sunrise and Afro-house music. 'The event not only made my day but also introduced me to some incredible friends. We now keep in touch through texting. I don't feel so lonely anymore,' says Sruthii. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Don't Pay Full Price for 2025's Top Games! Shop Now Undo Richard Noel, founder of Private Society and intellectual property producer, says that having travelled all over the world, he found Chennai to have the most beautiful sunrises and wanted to create an experience around that. 'The idea is to make people connect over coffee, food, and some good music on Sundays,' he says. Having begun in March, Private Society has organised six such events with 100 participants per event, priced at about Rs 700 per person. True to its name, participants are selected by the organisers after completing a form with details about themselves. If selected, they are informed of the location via email. As walk-ins ruin the experience, they never disclose the location. The guest list is also carefully chosen to include a blend of people from various professions, backgrounds and interests. Offering quality time for a small group of strangers, Meet, Mingle, Play is a group that invites strangers to meet, become friends, and do activities together, such as beach visits, road trips, and café hopping, priced at Rs 150 per person. 'People come to Chennai from different places to work. I wanted to create a platform where they can be themselves and connect with like-minded people. So far, we have had sessions at beaches, cafés, a house, and even went on a trip to Tada as a group,' says Rajeswari P, founder of Meet, Mingle, Play, launched in Oct 2024. 'Those who join the event mostly have work-from-home jobs. They want to meet new people and are solely looking for friendship . We are not a dating platform,' she says. For those who prefer one-on-one interaction with people, Unar Studio's art workshops offer this option. Participants are paired through emoji matching games here. 'We tell the participants to talk to everyone at the session and find one thing in common. If it matches, they are paired for the rest of the session. Meeting people can be scary, and our idea is to allow people to explore new connections while still being in their comfort zone,' says Kevin Beno, co-founder of Unar Studio.
CairoScene
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Your Eid Guide to Parties Across Egypt
Whether you're north, south, or in the city, we've brewed up a list of all the hottest happenings during Eid al-Adha. Eid al-Adha is less than a week away, and everyone is gearing up to celebrate. Whether you're craving nightlife thrills or the electric energy of a live concert, this year's lineup of events has something for everyone looking to make the most of the long holiday. From beachside grooves by the Red Sea to live concerts and DJ nights across Cairo, we've rounded up the hottest Eid parties happening around the country… Jingo: Fulltone, Ziad Mousa & Karim Hafez 📍 The Warehouse, El Gouna A night of tribal Afro-house awaits at Jingo's upcoming Eid gig, with Ziad Moussa, Karim Hafez, and Fulltone bringing the beats to keep you dancing deep into the night. 🎟️ Tickets: EGP 2,000 via TicketEgypt Venflare. '50 Years of AC/DC – Anniversary Concert' ft. Dave Evans 📍 Mazeej Platform, Somabay Rock legend Dave Evans, AC/DC's original frontman, is hitting Somabay for a historic concert—his first in the Middle East! Expect early hits like 'HighWay to Hell' and 'T.N.T.'. 🎟️ Tickets: EGP 1,500 via Tazkarti. Orijins: The Element, Kasia, Toto Chiavetta, Vomee, Shah & Nour Oden 📍 Tolip Hotel, New Administrative Capital 🕒 Fri June 6th | 7PM–6AM International acts join local names in a high-energy night of electronic music hosted by Orijins Fam. 🎟️ Tickets: EGP 1,500–EGP 4,000 via TechnoAndChill. 'Soul Sounds – Eid al-Adha Edition' ft. Hisham Abbas, Jadal & More A three-day event with performances by Jadal, Hisham Abbas, Mobbz, AK, Djunkie, Bebo and others. 🎟️ Tickets via La Hacienda's Instagram (link in bio). Wust El Balad & Black Theama 📍 Cairo Jazz Club 610, Sheikh Zayed Soulful sounds in the city with two legendary Egyptian bands. 🎟️ Tickets via Cairo Jazz Club's website. 'Lumen' by CJC Cairo Jazz Club debuts its new concept featuring Oscar & The Wolf, Klangphonics, Dirty Backseat, RootZadelics and more. 🎟️ Tickets from EGP 1,200 via TicketsMarche. Funkside: Johannes Albert, Misty, Tata & F-Spins Funkside returns with Berlin-based Johannes Albert and local DJs. 🎟️ Tickets: EGP 1,500 via CollardTickets. Makadi Heights Music Festival: Second Edition 📍 The Haus, Makadi Heights Headliners include Cairokee, Al Massrieen, Marwan Moussa, and Afroto. Festival includes art, food, and family activities. 🎟️ Tickets via TicketsMarche. Whispers: Guaved, Marz, Bou-D & Arshad Swiss DJ Guaved headlines this Afrohouse night by the Red Sea. 🎟️ Tickets: EGP 1,000 via CollardTickets. Subculture: Awen, A. Salah B2B Junior, Dou, Hey-D, Cox & Joe Aiaad 📍 Ohana Beach House, New Alamein 🕒 Sun June 8th | 7PM–7AM A 12-hour marathon of techno and Afrohouse music featuring Awen and local talent. 🎟️ Tickets: EGP 1,500–EGP 3,000 via CollardTickets. CJC: 'Arkade' ft. AK the DJ 📍 Sobar Rooftop, Somabay Cairo Jazz Club presents a rooftop groove session featuring AK the DJ. 🎟️ Tickets via Cairo Jazz Club's website.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
7 Things We Learned From Talking to EDC Las Vegas 2025 Performers
Every year, over half a million music fans flock to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for three nights to dance under neon lights to tunes spanning almost every imaginable dance music subgenre. While Electric Daisy Carnival just wrapped its 29th year, it somehow still finds ways to reinvent itself and grow — not just grow in crowd size, but in cultural and physical reach. Just before opening the gates to the festival on May 16, the event's producer Insomniac invited select guests to Hotel EDC at the Virgin Hotel to celebrate their latest international expansion. Partygoers celebrated with Gorgon City to highlight Insomniac's next international destination, Medellín, where EDC Colombia will launch in October 2026. More from Billboard Roger Nichols, Grammy-Nominated Co-Writer of 'We've Only Just Begun,' Dies at 84 Julión Álvarez Postpones Stadium Show in Texas After Not Being Able to Enter the U.S. Jamie Foxx Shuts Down Conspiracy Theory That Diddy Tried to Kill Him Inside the festival, we saw more representation on the lineup via the Ubutu stage, which created a dedicated space for Afro-house for the first time in the festival's 29-year run. This year the fest also added a dinner theater activation where guests were treated to a cocktail hour with an acrobatic showcase, followed by dinner featuring a dance troupe and ending with dessert and live singing. With the festival approaching its 30th year, Billboard spoke to a handful of DJs, from legendary headliners to this year's first-timers, to hear from their perspective on how EDC continues to grow and how they personally make each year better than the last. Here are seven takeaways from their words of wisdom. Tiësto is without a doubt one of the biggest names in dance music. He's played EDC every year since the festival moved from California to Las Vegas in 2011. You would think he's turned every possible stone the fest has to offer, but this year, the legend was excited to play Circuit Grounds, a fan-favorite stage, for the first time. Circuit Grounds offers more screens to visually bring the audience into new and unexpected tracks like Tiësto's upcoming collaboration with Sexyy Red on the F1 soundtrack, 'OMG!' Backstage the artist rhetorically asked us 'Who would have thought Tiësto would have collabed with Sexyy Red?… No one. Absolutely no one. And it's an amazing track.' Also bringing the unexpected this year was EDM titan Kaskade. He brought his b2b act with Alison Wonderland to the Cosmic Meadow stage after the artists debuted as a duo at EDC Orlando last year. This time around, they expanded their sound to include some of Wonderland's signature trap tunes. 'For me, it's just about playing stuff we love and trying to figure out that bridge in between,' Kaskade told us. 'We've only played a handful of shows so we're still discovering that as we play out more together.' When you've played EDC for as long as Tiësto and Kaskade, who's performed at the festival for two decades, you have to continue making changes to your solo sets. Tiësto reserved a special set for the mainstage, closing out the three-day festival with a set that saw a return to his trance roots. Rising German producer Marlon Hoffstadt introduced 'The Godfather of Trance' before his In Search of Sunrise Set, named after his legendary 1999 compilation album. Tiësto told us the time was finally right for such a moment, saying 'I reconnected with the sound I started with back in the day, and I feel like it's a full circle moment. When [Insomniac Events founder] Pasquale [Rotella] asked me 'Will you do a sunrise set?' and I thought 'Yeah, the time is right now.'' For Kaskade, his solo set was sprinkled with pieces of his decades-old hits. Many DJs' styles evolve over time, and Kaskade says he still struggles trying to resurface his former fan-favorites but admits, 'People online will like this. There's sometimes when there's somebody hitting me up like 'You haven't played this song in 10 years!' and I'm like 'Oh yeah. That is a good song. I should remember to bring that out.'' So, if you're waiting for more tracks from his 2008 album Strobelite Seduction to make it into his next set, like us, keep posting. The electric sky still shines just as bright, if not brighter, almost 30 years later. Alison Wonderland is still amazed at the impact that EDC has had on her and her friends after playing the festival 10 years later. She reflected on her first time playing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and crying, telling the audience 'I started in my bedroom and now I'm here.' A decade later, she's still humbled by her EDC experience saying that she can't believe she is sharing the stage with Kaskade. But there's nothing that could prevent her from taking the stage at the Electric Daisy Carnival. 'In fact, I actually love EDC so much that at 9 months pregnant I played main stage,' she said of this set that happened in 2023. With over 500,000 people attending the festival every year, it's the perfect opportunity for an artist to not only reach their fans but also expose themselves to a group of people who have potentially never heard their sound. Just ask Ben Nicky. We caught up with the British producer 10 minutes after his first set at Kinetic Field on Saturday night before he made his way to Neon Garden for a b2b set with Maddix. Walking into his trailer, he was already on his computer working on a track because he's aware of how every set offers its own opportunities. 'I'm like a DJ's DJ,' he said. 'I'm always changing something. Mainstage you've got your big fanbase there, but you've got another fifty to sixty thousand people who might not know you or be more into commercial stuff. So, you have to tailor and play more well-known vocals. Whereas in the trance tent, I can get away with more dark and underground stuff.' Ben meticulously tweaks every element to fit the crowd he's trying to appeal to, and the crowd at EDC is some of the most knowledgeable when it comes to dance music. Brazilian star Alok told Billboard that means you can't phone it in. 'I feel like people here each year are more and more educated,' he said, 'so, it's not easy to please them. So you really have to bring stuff that makes sense and not obvious.' He knows a thing or two about keeping an audience on their toes. He just had a buzzed-about Coachella performance, for which he hired dancers with two-tone arms to create eye-catching live visuals. While some DJs meticulously plan their sets, others prefer to 'just rip it' in the words of Tape B. He started playing EDC in Orlando while doing his undergrad in Florida. Now that he's worked his way up to EDC Las Vegas, he attended a programming meeting for the first time ahead of his solo set on Friday. When it came to his joint set with dubstep super DJ, Crankdat, they planned to start their set with their unreleased collab but keep it loose otherwise. He told Billboard about the planning that went into the set saying, 'Met up with Crankdat. Worked on our back-to-back for a little bit. Got songs kinda together. We're mainly freestyling it tonight. So, it's going to be very interesting, but very fun.' One of the most exciting aspects of attending EDC Las Vegas is the massive amount of unreleased music you'll hear. REZZ said she was most excited to give fans a taste of what direction she's taking her project next. 'I'm super excited for this year. I'm playing like, seven new songs, more than half of which I've never played before.' Check TikTok to see fans' live reactions to some of this new music. It's become customary for DJs to head to Las Vegas with a ton of unreleased music. Riot Ten used it as a chance to treat his most dedicated fans to an early listen of his new album, Requiem For a Riot, before it drops in a week. Other artists may opt to test out some tracks they're workshopping to see how the crowd reacts, like DJ Snake who played his upcoming song 'Paradise' for the audience at AYU dayclub, not once, but twice, to make sure it went off every time. With this year's addition of the Ubutu stage, Afro-house had a major presence at the festival for the first time. Francis Mercier noted that EDC is 'the home to different types of music from hip-hop to dubstep to house to now Afro house. It's a place where you can hear all different types of music.' This new stage opened the door for artists like Karaba, who hails from Montreal, Canada, to play a stage at EDC Las Vegas for the first time. Making the most of these opportunities is key, according to Morten. His first time playing the fest was in 2016 when he thought no one would see him spinning at one of the art cars. When he took the stage he was surprised by the energy. 'It doesn't matter what stage you're at, the party and the crowd is incredible.' Since then, he's played solo sets, b2b with David Guetta and this year played Kinetic Field with Artbat. If you really want to see how quickly you can ascend to greatness, you just have to look at Cloonee's trajectory. He admitted that EDC wasn't really a festival you thought about as someone who grew up in England. After living in the States for a few months, he found himself nervously playing the Stereo Bloom festival back in 2022. This year he played Circuit Grounds right after Tiësto,z who said he wasn't going to play Cloonee's hit song 'Stephanie' with InntRaw and Young M.A because it would be this year's most played song and you don't play the most played song before its creator takes the stage. Meanwhile, the advice Cloonee would give himself before playing Stereo Bloom in 2022 is, 'Calm down because you've got bigger ones to do.' Catch more of Billboard's EDC Las Vegas coverage on Billboard's Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Channels. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
