Bare land festival build, Chalong

The brief

The promoter had the brand, the lineup and an audience flying in from outside Thailand. They needed a site, a stage that looked like nothing their crowd had seen at home, and everything between the airport and the last set handled by one team. The date was fixed by the artists and the high season, which meant the permits, the ground works and the shipping all ran on a clock that could not move.

The site

Bare waterfront land in Chalong Bay: sand over clay, a tide line to respect, mangrove on one boundary and residential neighbours on another. Access was a single track that turned to mud after 20mm of rain. There was no power on the land and no water. The survey set the stage position by the sound direction, facing away from the houses and out over the water, and set the access route by where a 12 metre truck could turn.

The ground works came first and took most of the schedule: levelling, compacted hardcore for the truck route and the stage footprint, matting for the crowd area, drainage cut before the first structure went up. Then fencing, gates, path lighting, toilets, water tanks and the generator compound, all before a single piece of stage arrived.

What we built

The main stage was bamboo and scaffold, a Thai construction method used for a festival structure, with a carved face designed for the show and built on site. The roof was rated for wind and inspected under the temporary structure permit before the rig went in. The sound system was sized for the field with delays, the lighting rig ran on a dedicated generator, and the bars, traders, production office, artist compound and crew catering all had their own power and water.

Licensing ran in parallel: district notification, police permit for crowd and sound, the structure inspection and a noise agreement with the neighbours, with the promoter's licensed Thai partner holding the alcohol side. Artist logistics covered the whole lineup and their teams, flights, hotels and drivers. Content was shot through the build and the show, with drone footage where the permit allowed.

What went wrong and how it was handled

Sand needs more ballast than the drawings say. The access track needed a second layer of hardcore after the first rain and we now specify it from the start. The neighbours were the most important relationship on the job, ahead of any supplier, and the noise reading at their fence line is now the first number on every site plan. And a weather day in the build schedule is not optional on this coast; we used it.

The numbers

The module

This was end to end, which is why it is written up first. Everything in kit and stage and full production, plus the site finding, the design, the bar and trader build and the content. Similar ground, and the same crew, is covered on the Phuket and festival production pages.