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Bus Stop
Sharm El-Sheikh
By Daniel Lanier
Sharm El-Sheikh, the former fishing village, now a
luxury resort and diver’s paradise at the south tip of the Sinai
Peninsula, has everything that young partygoers are looking for
during their vacation when they don’t spend the night dancing at
parties, discos and clubs. It has long beaches, brilliant sun,
leisure and sport facilities, internet cafés and pool bars.
Unfortunately, Sharm El-Sheikh is not famous for being a clubbing
destination. Admittedly, its numerous five-star hotels offer a
wide range of discos, pubs and bars, all of them with decent dance
music and average light shows, not to speak of the cool drinks and
a party crowd willing to be entertained all night long after a day
of swimming, diving, horse-riding, para-sailing or discovering the
beauty of Sinai’s mountains. But though many of these dance
spots are made quite professional, they often seem to be just
another possibility to make the tourists spending their money
inside of their hotels or their resorts.
Someone who could change this is Amr Ismail. The
young man’s recipe is simple: He organizes the kind of discos,
concerts and pop events that he likes to attend. Amr Ismail
manages the »Bus Stop«
beside the Sanafir Hotel in Sharm El-Sheikh’s Naama Bay. The
real red double-decker bus attached to the building and serving as
the »Bus Stop’s« main entrance became a landmark in Naama Bay.
Beside daily discos and theme nights at the »Bus Stop« Amr
Ismail arranges special events in the courtyard of the Sanafir
Hotel as well as at a place he calls the »Echo Temple«, just a
few kilometers outside of Sharm El-Sheikh in the desert, with the
magnificent mountains of Sinai in the background.
Especially famous are Amr Ismail’s »House
Nation« parties in the courtyard of the Sanafir Hotel almost
every Thursday night. The biggest drawback for bringing Sharm
El-Sheikh into the international club scene of pleasure-seeking
Europeans is the mix of ages. Tourists here are either sporty
scuba divers or middle-aged family-oriented sun seekers, a deadly
mix for ambitious DJ’s, who find themselves being forced to
satisfy all tastes.
Amr Ismail doesn’t care. He has a mission and he
takes the risk. Almost every Thursday he transforms the inner area
of the Sanafir Hotel into an open-air techno and house music
hotspot – with live drummers, Brazilian dance or fashion shows,
a large video screen and a distinctive light and laser show. At
the end, the scene looks exactly like what the people would
recognize from Ibiza or Mallorca, but without the opportunity to
dive next day through some of the most exciting coral reefs of the
world or to spend the afternoon with Bedouins in the desert,
surrounded by a breath-taking landscape.
Amr Ismail’s latest achievement is the »Echo
Temple«, a desert stage seven kilometers away from Sharm El-Sheikh’s
main road, which occasionally invites for concerts performers such
as Raï superstar Khaled or to house and techno parties with
international DJ’s. In this case, the location is easily
reachable by a bus shuttle service.
»Bus Stop«, next to Sanafir Hotel, Naama Bay,
Sharm El-Sheikh. South Sinai. Egypt. Telephone: +20–69–6001-97
or –98. Fax: +20–69–600196. E-mail: sanafir@access.com.eg.
Website: http://www.busstopevents.com/
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