KUCHING, MALAYSIA: It was great music as thousands danced to the drumbeats at the Rainforest World Music Festival in Sarawak Cultural Village in Santubong near here.

Partying all night long, music fans had a great time as the seven foreign and local musical groups thrilled them during the five-hour concert on Saturday.

However, the same could not be said for several hundred other disappointed music fans who had to be turned away as the venue could not accommodate them.

Sarawak Tourism Board chief executive officer Gracie Geikie said the organisers had to close the main entrance to the concert at about 9.45pm as the crowd was getting too big.

"We had to shut out several hundred people waiting to buy tickets as we have to ensure the safety and comfort of those already inside," she told The Star yesterday.

Geikie said that there were 9,063 music fans who bought tickets to the concert on Saturday and this huge turnout was because it was a weekend and the weather was good.

On Friday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and wife Datin Sri Jeanne joined more than 7,200 music lovers for the opening concert.

The organisers estimated the crowd for the three nightly concerts to be 24,000 this year, up from 22,000 who attended the music festival last year.

Geikie said that the board was considering organising mini concerts next year in other venues in the city, like at the ampitheatre at Jalan Budaya, to enable more people to enjoy the popular musical event.

The musicians who performed on Saturday were Sheldon Blackman (from Trinidad and Tobago), Hiroshi Motorfuji (Japan), Yakande (Gambia/Guinea), Adel Salameh (Palestine/Algeria), Beltaine (Poland), Kelabit band Kani'd and Tuku Kame (both from Sarawak).

Besides the nightly concerts, musical workshops that featured the performing bands held in the afternoon sessions were also crowd pullers.

The workshops were held simultaneously in separate native traditional houses in the village.