As the tip of the sun peaks over a distant hill, the night creatures of Wonderfruit slowly became visible. At Solar Stage, people dance wildly hanging off the towering structure. Others sleep in the honey-comb enclaves, oblivious to the soulful music booming from Funktion-One speakers. A man wearing a psychedelic tank top and neon short-shorts gleefully throws a soot stained baby doll wearing a leopard print thong in the air. A group of tattooed guys clad all in black wearing motorcycle vests and baseball caps that read Bang Bang, hug it out on the dancefloor. A cowbow rasta high fives a bombshell wearing a futuristic robot costume as Acid Pauli drops another track that makes the crowd cheer. Everyone is dancing like no one is watching, happy and at peace. It’s funky, sexy, weird, and amazing. This is sunrise at Wonderfruit.
Back to Wonderfruit
When we last attended Wonderfruit 3 years ago, we were impressed with the high level of production, which was unexpected for a new boutique festival in Thailand . Now in its 6th edition, Wonderfruit has matured, tripling in size and attracting fun-loving people from all over the world, who create an amazing party scene.
At night the grassy Fields turn into a scene that brings back memories of night-time adventures at Burning Man. Brightly lit groups of people walk by decorated with LED wings, flashing blinkies, and, EL wire. An infinite number of sounds pierce the air: excited whoops and chatter, the background thump of distant stages, steam hissing from woks at the food stands.
From our first few hours exploring, it was clear that Wonderfruit had become a unique destination event on par with larger festivals like Lightning in a Bottle and Coachella.
Hedonistic Sustainability
Festival life is all about living in the moment and disconnecting from society. After 10 years of going to festivals, the blur of meeting tons of people and raving all weekend has started to get old. It's refreshing to experience an event that not only provides quality music and programming, but also inspires attendees to live and consume consciously. Recognizing that most festivals have a devastating impact on the environment, Wonderfruit's organizers are leading the way and creating a model for a profit-based, yet sustainable festival economy. Wonderfruit's founder, Pete Pranitan Phornphrapha calls Wonderfriuit's unique blend of environmentalism, cultural education, and creativity "hedonistic sustainability."
Recognizing that people fly long distances to travel to this destination festival, Wonderfruit offers attendees the chance to reduce their carbon footprint through carbon offset programs. They have created their own cryptotoken called TREE and partnered with the Mae Fah Luang to replant trees in the rainforests of Doi Tung. Wonderfruit has invested in 10,000 TREEs and each one protects a mangrove in Thor Heyerdahl Climate Park. When purchasing their festival tickets, attendees can use an emissions calculator to see how much carbon they will emit, then donate a corresponding amount to pay for their journey's carbon. Our flight from Malaysia to Bangkok would need 81 trees planted to make our trip carbon neutral.
Throughout the 4-day event, we witnessed how Wonderfruit is built more like a sustainable pop-up city rather than a mainstream music festival. The innovative stages and signs are built from sustainable materials like recycled plastic and bamboo. Food is sourced from the onsite farm, single use plastics are banned, and free drinking water is filtered from the lake on-site.
A Taste of Thailand
Eating at Wonderfruit was a feast for your taste buds. In the local food, local farm area, you could gather on haystacks and eat a Chinese hot pot or Thai food sourced from the vegetable patch in The Fields. Dots Coffee, a Bangkok-based chain of coffee shops that employs visually impaired people, served up delicious strong coffee to festival-goers looking for natural energy boosts.
Food vendors were scattered throughout the festival, creating a Bangkok-like street food atmosphere. There were a range of different Asian cuisines as well as Western food options. Communal banquets cooked by top-chefs were available from 2,500 baht ($82), but if you didn't want to splurge, you could also enjoy a Thai omelette with rice for only 80 baht ($3).
Our favourite dining experience was eating mouth watering samosas, fish vindaloo, garlic naan, and peanut masala papadum at a pop-up Indian restaurant Bombay Blues. The owner Romy who ran the Bombay Blues restaurant in Bangkok, had attended Wonderfruit last year, and was inspired to build a beautiful restaurant-lounge where people could enjoy Indian music while eating.
Unless they are hired overseas, many local artists and event producers in Thailand don't have the opportunity or funding to create art on such a large scale. Wonderfruit gave Thai and Southeast Asian artists a platform to express their creativity using traditional methods like bamboo weaving in an innovative and creative way. At the same time, attendees got a taste of local craftsmanship- something that was unique to the Wonderfruit experience.
Minimizing the Struggle of Festival Life
Wonderfruit was definitely one of the most accessible festivals we've attended. Usually big festival sites are on remote locations that take hours to get to. Wonderfruit was only 2 hours away from Bangkok, and 20 minutes driving from Pattaya. Grab shuttles and ride shares made transportation easy, and there were a variety of housing options ranging from luxury boutique camping tents to hotel rooms off-site. Guests could either camp on-site in their own tents, rent one of the boutique camping options, or stay in hotels or AirBnBs off-site. Given how hot it gets in Thailand, we went for the comfort of air-conditioning and chose to rent a hotel room for $11/night. Once on the festival grounds, little touches like free drinking water stations, and cashless wristband systems made everything flow easily.
99 Hours of Fun
Wonderfruit offers a high-tech app where you can see all their programming, save your favourites, plan your adventure, and coordinate your schedule with friends. The grueling heat of Thailand's sun means that not many people make it to day-time events. Although I planned to check out a bunch of day-time activities, the allure and lack of energy that came with dancing all night meant that by the end of the festival I hadn't done anything on my schedule.
For the rare person who has an endless supply of energy to do workshops and still dance through the night, Wonderfruit runs non-stop for a full 99 hours, with something to do and enjoy for every minute of those hours. Daily Scratch Talks at the Eco Pavilion ranged from a Plastics Debate Panel with Doug Woodring, the founder of Ocean Recovery Alliance to an inspirational talk with blind adventurer Divyanshu Ganatra and a Weed Legalisation panel. For spiritual festivalgoers, there were meditation, Thai Fire therapy massage, yoga, and sound healing workshops. Those who wanted to leave Wonderfruit with a handmade souvenir could participate in kite-making, tie-dye, or recycled plastic crafting workshops.
Some of the highlights that we caught were a captivating Shibari performance by Unnamed Minor and her rope bunny, a spectacular sunset fire show by Samui Circus Studio, and a roving dance performance by Space-Craft, a Bangkok based dance troupe.
A Vibrant Pop-Up City
Instead of just focusing on electronic music, Wonderfruit curates a diverse musical lineup. This year's event included hip-hop performances, Thai Isaan bands, disco group Voilaa Soundsystem, Daddy G of Massive Attack, Latin music, live beatboxer Beardyman, and innovative live sets by Be Svendsen and Viken Arman.
Wonderfruit's new location on the grounds of Siam Country Club, was the perfect size for a festival. It was large enough that you could spend hours exploring yet small enough that you ran into the same people. Atmospheric lights created an otherworldly, beautiful environment that made walking around at night seem like an epic adventure. Similar to Burning Man where theme camps build their own stages and curate the entertainment, Wonderfruit left the creative direction of smaller stages to well-known Southeast Asian event companies like Havana Social and Rainforest Pavilion.
Havana Social- A secret speakeasy bar in Bangkok that takes visitors back to the days when Havana was the Las Vegas of the Caribbean. The venue at Wonderfruit offered Latin cocktails to the sounds of Cuban jazz, afro-beats, salsa and reggaeton tunes.
Molam Bus- An iconic Wonderfruit stage that featured live Molam music from the northeastern Isaan region of Thailand. Another perfect spot for viewing sunset.
Rainforest Pavilion - Tucked away from the main festival grounds, Rainforest Pavilion was accessible by traveling across a bamboo bridge illuminated by hundreds of tiny light bulbs that created a magical atmosphere. You could always find good vibes, sexy deep house, and cool people to connect with here. The stage was crated by a Bali based collective of music professionals who throw raves around the world to benefit rainforest conservation.
Neramit- The place to go when you needed to take power naps in between dancing. A 24 hour lounge, performance stage, cocktail bar, and restaurant serving brunch food all day .
The Polygon
Polygon was hands down the best music stage we've ever experienced. The 25-meter polygonal structure designed by the British company Polygon Live, used 3D virtual-reality sound technology synced with lights and beats to create world’s first fully immersive 3D 360° sound stage.
The Quarry- You had to trek through a forest to find this oasis featuring 3D projections and heavy techno beats. A cuddle puddle lounge space or the grassy hillside surrounding the stage allowed dancers to rest while enjoying forest rave vibes. Collisions was a curated music experience by DJ Craig Richards that broke the standard of DJ's being put on massive podiums like gods. Each night at the Quarry, the anonymous DJs were hidden behind screens, creating a more intimate, social vibe on the dancefloor.
Rabbit Hole - Created by a Bangkok cocktail bar, this was another venue where we heard lots of underground DJs playing hard techno and electro.
What made Wonderfruit so special were the little touches that showed how well designed and thought out the event was. Festivals are physically exhausting and Wonderfruit designers took note of this when designing each venue. Each stage had cuddle puddle areas that allowed you to rest while still feeling a part of the action. Polygon was encircled by mounds of grass that served as natural benches, and Solar Stage's towering geometric structure was the perfect place to relax while listening to music and people watching.
Solar Stage- Designed by Burning Man Temple builder Gregg Fleishman, this was where everyone congregated to anticipate the start and end of each day. Like at Burning Man, once the sun came out in full force the dancefloor started to empty, and only the most enthusiastic dancers were left raging. Solar Stage's location behind a distant mountain combated this problem. Although sunrise was around 7:30am, the heat of the sun wasn't felt until almost 9am when the sun became visible above the mountain top.
Funky, Sexy, Cool Vibes
I knew that Wonderfruit would be bigger, but I was unprepared for how much cooler it had gotten. It wasn't the new stages, more expansive location, or new headliners that gave this year's Wonderfruit it's cool factor- it was the people who came from all over the world. Each year Wonderfruit attracts more and more people who fly from far away countries to attend the destination event. Within our first hours on site, we randomly ran into friends from New York who we never expected to see in Asia.
No matter how high-tech a production is or how many famous DJ's are on the line-up, it's ultimately the vibe of an event that makes it stand out. Wonderfruit has notably succeeded in attracting the right people who create a judgement-free environment where anything goes. We noticed there were more Burning Man attendees than when we had attended 3 years ago. As a result, there were more costumes and bold self-expression was the norm on the dancefloor.
Raising Awareness through Music and Art
The Wonderfruit production team has used their experience to create an event that inspires the next generation of eco-warriors, using music and art to campaign for a brighter, more sustainable future. After 6 years of hard work and commitment to their vision for a sustainable festival model, this was the first year that Wonderfruit earned a profit. Given how much better the event has gotten since we last attended, we only see it going up from here. Tickets for 2020 are already on sale at https://wonderfruit.co/
Our suggestions for future editions which will improve the Wonderfruit experience even more:
- Shade structures with built in misters so people can cool off if in the heat if they attend day-time activities
- More visible signage for the drinking stations
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