Festival production in Thailand
A field, a beach or an island. A festival on it by the weekend.
This is the work where there is nothing on the site when you arrive. No power, no water, no road, sometimes no fence. Festival production in Thailand is the business of putting a small town on a piece of land for three days and taking it away again without a trace. We do it from a base in Phuket with a crew that has done it on sand, on farmland and on islands you reach by longtail. The broader company page is event production in Thailand.
Greenfield is a different job
A venue show is mostly about the stage. A festival on bare land is mostly about everything that is not the stage. The order of work is the tell: we start with the access route, because a 12 metre truck has to get in and the ground has to hold it after rain. Then the site plan, which is a drawing of where the crowd stands, where the sound points, where the bars and toilets and the medical tent go, and where the neighbours are so the noise reading at their fence line stays under the number in the permit. Then the ground works: levelling, ballast, matting, drainage. Then the infrastructure: generators and distro, water tanks and grey water, fencing, gates, path lighting. The stage goes up last, which surprises people, because by then the site is a place that can hold a stage.
The paperwork runs in parallel. A temporary event on private land in Thailand needs the landowner's agreement, the sub district office notified, a police permit for the crowd and the sound, a temporary structure inspection for anything with a roof, and for alcohol a licensed entity whose paperwork covers the date. We file all of it, sit in the meetings, and keep the relationships warm between shows so the next one is faster.
What we build
Stages from bamboo and scaffold to full steel truss with a flown roof. We built a bamboo and scaffold stage with a carved face on bare sand in Chalong for a crowd of 3,000, which you can read about in the work. Sound systems sized for the field, not the spec sheet, with delays where the site needs them. Lighting and lasers, video walls, pyrotechnics and flame through licensed operators. Then the town: bars, food positions, toilets, showers, campsite if there is one, production office, artist compound, crew catering and the car park nobody budgets for.
Where in Thailand
Phuket first, because it is home and the ground is the hardest, so anything that works there works elsewhere. Then the Andaman coast: Krabi, Koh Lanta, Khao Lak and the beaches of Phang Nga, all a truck away. The gulf islands, Koh Phangan, Koh Samui and Koh Tao, reached by ferry with the load planned around the sailing. The north, Chiang Mai and Pai, which is farmland and rivers and cooler nights, a long drive but a good one. And anywhere else in the country with a landowner who says yes. For an island specific view see event production in Phuket; for a city show with a roof already on it see event production in Bangkok.
Who this is for
Promoters bringing a destination festival to Thailand who need a production partner on the ground with the site, the permits and the crew, so they can spend their time on the lineup and the tickets. Existing Thai festivals that have outgrown the local hire company. Brands that want to own a weekend rather than sponsor someone else's. And a smaller group: people with land, a resort or a beach who have been asked to host and want someone to make that decision safe.
How it runs
Site visit and survey. A line by line budget with the module marked, usually end to end for greenfield or full production if you have your own site team. A build schedule with weather days in it. Then we contract the suppliers, file the permits, build, run the site on show days, strike, reinstate the land and hand over the content. The invoice at the end matches the budget unless the brief changed, and if the brief changed you knew the number before you said yes.
See the work: bare land in Chalong, built and written up with the numbers, and how we run a beach on the Andaman coast.
How it works
Kit, then crew, then the whole thing.
Elsewhere
Same crew, different ground
Questions promoters ask
Festival production in Thailand, answered
What does it cost to build a festival on bare land in Thailand?
More than a venue show by a distance, because you are paying for a town as well as a stage. We quote it as one fixed number with every line behind it, and the number moves most on three things: how far the site is from a main road, whether there is any power or water on it, and whether anything has to be shipped in from outside Thailand.
How far ahead do we need to start?
Months, not weeks, for a greenfield site. The temporary structure permit, the land use agreement, the police and district approvals, the toilets and water contracts and the generator hire all run on their own timelines and some of them cannot start until the one before is signed. A venue show is weeks; a festival on a field is months.
Can you work on islands and remote sites?
Yes, that is most of the work. Koh Phangan, Koh Tao, Koh Lanta, Koh Yao, the beaches north of Khao Lak, farmland in Chiang Mai. Every one of them adds a leg to the logistics, usually a ferry or a barge, and we plan the load around the boat timetable rather than the other way round.
Who is responsible for the land?
You lease it, we build on it. We survey the site with you, agree the footprint, the access route and where the neighbours are, and put a reinstatement plan in the contract so the land goes back the way it came. If you do not have a site yet we can point you at owners we have worked with and tell you which ones to avoid.
What infrastructure do you bring to a greenfield site?
Everything a town would have for a weekend. Power and distribution, water and grey water, toilets and showers, fencing and gates, lighting for the paths and the car park, radios, a medical tent position, crew catering and a production office. Then the stage, sound and lights on top. It is roughly 25 trucks for a 3,000 capacity site.
Do you handle the bars and the traders?
We build the positions, the power and the water for them, and we can bring in an operator to run them if you want that handled inside the contract. What we do not do is sell alcohol or hold the licence. That sits with a licensed Thai entity or a venue, and it needs to be in place before tickets go on sale.
What happens if a storm hits during the build?
We stop, we strap everything down, we wait. Wind ratings on the roofs are real numbers and we do not exceed them for a schedule. The build plan has a weather day in it for exactly this reason and the crew are paid for it whether it rains or not.
Got a site, or looking for one?
Send us the date and the capacity and tell us what is on the land right now, even if the answer is nothing. That is where most of them start.
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