BIGGER AND BETTER
Spectacular sets. A big line-up of the country’s hottest artists. The cool evening air of Khao Yai. Omelette rice. Cows.
These are some of the things music and party lovers have come to associate with the Big Mountain Music Festival, Thailand’s own music festival that is also one of the largest in the region.
Celebrating its ninth anniversary this year, BMMF will be returning in full swing in December. The hills of Khao Yai will be alive with the sound of music as over 200 local artists of all genres will take turn thundering away on the festival’s nine stages. This year’s line-up includes Bodyslam, Clash, Peck Palitchoke, Palmy, Aof Pongsak, Slot Machine, Paradox, Jintara Poonlarp, Thaitanium, Fukking Hero and more.
“Bigger and better” is what was promised by festival organisers — Phawit Chitrakorn, CEO of GMM Music Business at GMM Grammy, and Yuthana Boonorm, president of Gan 555. In an interview with Life at GMM headquarter in Asok, the two shared their visions and plans for the upcoming fun, plus a tedious operation design to accommodate the expected 80,000+ attendees expected to be at the BMMF this year. More toilets and parking and tent spaces are among some of the things on the agenda.
Another addition this year is talok café (Thai stand-up comedy), to be held in the afternoon as part of the experimental non-music entertainment extension.
“With Big Mountain, we always think how we can take it further. And we feel we’d like to expand it to be more than just a music space. We now have our eyes on non-music, too,” said Phawit.
“I personally want to push talok café forward. The space for them is now very limited. Their café, which served as a live performance venue, are practically all gone. Now they only exist on TV, and there’s barely anything online. This stand-up comedy as a live show is close to disappearing from the country.”
“We look at festivals like Coachella, Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, and others, they have non-music, too. However, for them, it’s leaning more towards arts, and even environment — which is also a direction we’ve been going at an appropriate scale,” added Yuthana. “We also experiment constantly. This year, we have the comedians. Next year, we may try something else. Rest assured we’re not trying to be Coachella or Glastonbury. If anything, we’ll do it Thai style, that people who’ve been to all those festivals would come to ours because they can’t find this experience anywhere else.”
Big Mountain is made up almost entirely of Thai local artists, which is quite unlike music festivals in other countries that may be headlined by international acts.
“This is actually made possible because Thai people really support local artists,” said Yuthana. “I’d say we have one of the strongest support bases for local artists in Asia. I used to view us using our local Thai language as a disadvantage, a limitation. But I’ve since found that language barrier can actually become an advantage because it makes people appreciate and support our own artists in our local language even more.”
Yuthana also reflected on the changing landscape of Thailand’s music trends, which sees hip hop gaining widespread momentum this year. Big Mountain is adjusting its game to this development with a new stage dedicated entirely for hip hop artists for the first time.
“Hip hop is the new rock,” proclaimed Yuthana. “Turning back time to when we were kids, all the teens would buy guitars, set up rock bands and cover rock music. But now, I think more and more kids aren’t buying guitars but instead writing rhymes. They can create beats and make music on their phones.”
“I think it’s a way for kids today to express themselves,” added Phawit. “Hip hop can be a very expressive genre. It’s a new culture of thought that people in this era relate to, and there’s no right or wrong to it.”
Today, people’s listening behaviour is changing beyond just differing genres, but also extending to how they choose to consume music. Dependency on streaming services and online sources, especially on phones, has impacted the music industry. But what about music festivals?
“I think music festivals — more so than headline shows or solo acts — are a perfect match for this type of behaviour,” said Yuthana. “It’s different from my generation that the DJ would curate what band people should listen to, that would end up being played on the radio. Now, it’s opposite. There’s no curator. There are artists everywhere, which is good for music festivals because it has lots of space for everyone, with lots of different-sized stages to cater to people’s different tastes.”
Phawit also views that easy access to music made possible through the internet is benefiting the music industry.
“More people consuming means there are more people who love artists and their music. It’s then up to us to how we’re going to give them an opportunity to see live performances under a concept that they also like,” he said.
Starting with just 25,000 attendees in its first outing, the festival has grown rapidly through the years. And organisers have set their sights on expanding even further.
Phawit foresees that the number of attendees will cross the 100,000 threshold in a few years. In order to achieve that, he said well-arranged facilities and growth in both music and non-music entertainment will be necessary.
“In the future, we could be both a festival and carnival. Who knows?” he said.
“I think our growth may differ from others,” Yuthana opined. “We may not need too many international headliners like they do at Fuji Rock or Summer Sonic. What we need to do is make tourists feel that this is something they have to experience — the same way they feel they have to try phadThai. We want to make them excited about our local artists. Whether or not we’d have international headliners would be our second priority.”