Dubai-born Iranian Amin Golestan, 23, beat stiff competition from first runner-up Jordanian Ibrahim Saleh, 35, to walk away with the DJ Palme 2008 award and a whole lot of goodies.
Held over three days at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre, the event evoked an enthusiastic response from both amateur and professional DJs in the Middle East.
After a tough semi-final round involving 16 participants, six finalists were shortlisted to battle it out for top honours.
Eventually, it was Amin, the resident DJ of Club Submarine and Plan B, who spun his way to the top.
"This was the first time that I had participated in the competition. I was under the impression that such competitions are for hip-hop and rap genres. I didn’t expect to win the title for house music," said Amin, who also has monthly residencies in Moscow, Ukraine and Amsterdam. Sri Lankan Delarn, 28, was declared second-runner up.
The competition was judged by DJ Mister Mister aka Mike Bufton, DJ Greg Dufton, Manager Chi@The Lodge, British DJ Dan Tate and last year’s Palme winner DJ Mo Tiger.
"It was a great event. We had to take our pick from over 30 acts," said Bufton.
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