Siam Country Club Pattaya, Thailand. 12-16 Dec 2019
If you are easily swayed by brilliant music and experiences, sustainable ethics and the best website design ever, then the Wonderfruit Festival in Pattaya, Thailand is a must-go.
The organisers describe it as “a celebration of art, music, food and ideas to catalyze positive impact.” That’s a pretty good start, but they go on to say that their core ethos is to “encourage, develop and innovate creative solutions for sustainable living and bring together a global community to celebrate them.” Wow.
Courtesy Wonderfruit
The festival workers have pledged to re-think the way a society functions, from waste management, water, transportation and logistics to energy, food, human interactions to social experiments. By designing a temporary city with these things in mind, they are working to “re-engineer traditional practices to create a world we want to see.”
It’s not all virtuous policy at Wonderfruit though. This year’s festival (it’s been going for six years) offers a comprehensive set of international live music, DJs, performance and installations. There’s even a village shaped like an ear, as well as talks and workshops, world-class cuisine, art installations and cutting-edge architectural set ups.
So far they have signed up some 30 headline acts, including elegantly-moody piano lilts from Douglas Dare, the Music City experience from BBC Radio 3’s Nick Luscombe, the unique vocals of Hokkaido-born Hatis Noit, Beardy Man, Go-Go Penguin and local comet-trajectory players The Turbans and Velopian Solitude.
The festival revolves around enjoying yourself, but is based on responsible, sustainable pillars: Art & Architecture, Farm to Feasts, Music, Family, Talks & Workshops and Wellness. Even better, the booking site offers you an emissions calculator to allow you to see how much carbon you emit whether you are driving from Bangkok or flying from abroad. “Every kilometer covered means carbon released,” says the organisers. “It’s time to plant some trees.”
Better still, the festival has gone the whole box and dice on disposables – and banned disposable plastic cups altogether. If you don’t bring your own, you don’t get a drink, simple as that.
Courtesy Wonderfruit
“Wonderfruit generated 33 tons of waste last year alone,” say the organisers. “Much of that waste is packaging—compostable and biodegradable plates - but that doesn’t solve the main problem; we still have too much waste. To address this, our solution is simple: NO SINGLE-USE CUPS.”Brilliant.
Courtesy Wonderfruit
You can stay Wonderfruiting all five days in the pop-up
temporary city in a your own tent, a provided Bell Tent, one with a/c, a posh Safari Duo, or a Boutique RV. Prices for four nights begin at around US$225 USD, with kids below 12 getting in free. And best of all, you get to do all this cool stuff in spiritual and welcoming nThailand. See you there!
When: 12 to 16 December 2019. Where: The Fields at Siam Country Club, Pattaya, 50, Pong, Bang Lamung District, Chon Buri 20150, Thailand