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Discovering the tropical island psychedelic festival - The Experience Reported by Agnes Klos / Submitted 20-02-13 20:41 Tropical paradise islands in the Gulf of Thailand such as Koh Phangan or Koh Tao, offer tranquil places to unwind under the shade of coconut palms and walks along sandy beaches where you can absorb the spirit of nature. Some of the travellers though, come to this side of the world with a different mind set, seeking out the best there is on the psytrance scene. The Experience New Year’s Eve Festival at Koh Tao has become a mecca for many wandering souls. HarderFaster sent globe trotting reporter Agnes Klos to talk to one of the members of the magical island family, Jo Moontribe. Thailand is one of most sought after destinations in Southeast Asia for thousands of travellers from all around the globe. Known for its magnificent Buddist temples, elephant trekking, unspoilt rainforest, breath taking waterfalls, delicious cuisine and cheap massages. It is truly a paradise on the Earth and many music lovers flock here to celebrate the coming of a new year. The Experience could not have chosen a better location for the festival site than one of Southern Thailand's true tropical island escapes, Koh Tao. With its golden sandy beaches, secluded bays and excellent scuba diving, Koh Tao’s charm is hard to resist. We'll take a journey back in time and find out how it all started. I sat down for a chat with Jo Moontribe, the right hand of the festival organisation and also a DJ himself, who was kind enough to find time and give me a thoughtful insight into the roots of the festival. The history of The Experience began in 2008, with the same organisation it still has today. The main people in charge are Leung from Koh Phangan and Jorg from Koh Tao. The idea of the Experience appeared when a New Year’s festival down in Krabi called The Green Spirit, ceased to exist in 2006. The Green Spirit was a beautiful festival that promoted trance in Thailand and when it stopped a gap was created in the music scene on the island. Therefore, Leung came up with the idea of creating a new festival, with its own organisation and ideas behind it, which is called today 'The Experience'. “The ideology of The Experience is to keep the psytrance scene alive around the world. The main idea is to display our love for the scene and keep the ball rolling. We are not doing it for the money but for the passion of music. We want to attract people from all four corners of the globe. It is not a question of attracting people just from Koh Phangan but to keep the festival an international fusion of music lovers from everywhere in the world,” elaborates Jo Moontibe. The Experience tries to please all music palates by providing a range of music from pure psychedelic trance to progressive and full-on as well. The festival is located on a hill with spectacular views over golden beaches below. As you enter the festival site, the first thing that strikes you is the beautiful décor filling up the space between the palm trees and fusing its structure into a perfect harmony with nature. Two massive backdrops embellish the DJ box on each side, each featuring a mesmerising dragon that seems to be protecting the dance floor from all the bad spirits. As I found out the two wicked backdrops were made by Carin Dickson from South Africa, who is an internationally known artist that has been providing the décor for such festival as Boom and Ozora. The festival organiser himself, Leung, is the brains behind the décor. He is the one who comes up with the theme for the festival each given year. First he gathers all his decoration team, which works for the organisation all year around, installing the décor for parties such as Blackmoon, Ban Sabaii and presents the idea to them. Leung orders custom made décor for the festival and then his team installs everything. After presenting his vision to his team, they know how to put it all together in order to achieve the desired effect. It can be described as a beautiful cooperation, filled with respect. “The atmosphere of the festival is love, peace, psytrance and it is all about the positive energy, togetherness, people connecting with each other through the music, through the dancing, through the location itself. I think the place is actually called magic garden and there is something about it. When people come here, they feel these positive vibes around and good energy floating so maybe it is the most beautiful thing, apart from DJs doing an amazing job. The goal is to make people feel like one and we take pride in being able to achieve it,” Jo explains to us. When I asked ‘Mr. Moontribe' about the story behind the name of The Experience festival, he told me: “I asked Leung once why such a name and he answered; Because we get an experience from everyone we meet on our path. The festival-goers get more experience in the psytrance scene on this side of the world and the organisation is getting more experienced which is visible in the improvements each year too. Our aim is to make the festival better and better each year but not bigger and bigger. Our motto is quality not quantity”. While heading down this side of the world for the first time, it is hard to imagine what to really expect from the festival. There are a few unbeatable charms. Firstly, it cannot be denied that the location is a big magnet that attracts music lovers from around the globe. The place is breathtaking, with beautiful nature all around, views of the sea, crystal clear water of the Gulf of Thailand, palm trees and sand under your feet. Secondly, the expectations of stunning decorations and great psytrance music are fully met and satisfied. And last but not least, it is the people who create a party, as Jo clarifies; “For me personally, what makes the festival special is the quality of the people who get here. We get on average 1500 to 1800 people, all with nice energy, they all connect to each other and a few days later, they all know each other. In my opinion what distinguishes us from other events is the good vibes created by the people. Many international DJs, the big names, talk to me after the festival and leave us with beautiful comments about the event. But the feedback that always keeps on repeating from them refers to the quality of people we get here, and they all say the same. The crowd that you get here is absolutely amazing! By the end of the day, you can work all you like, you can do what you want and you can try to organise everything perfectly, but it is the people that create the festival and make the party.” The proof is in the pudding as the festival will see many people returning, with those who come here for the first time usually end up coming back year after year. From my personal observation of the festival I noticed that the organisation was of high standards, with rubbish being cleaned all the time and no queues for toilets or bars. When I asked Jo how they divide their organisational tasks, he explained: “We have team cleaning the dance floor but we also noticed that people here are conscious and are joining in by putting their rubbish in the bin themselves, instead of chucking it away. We provide bins all around the festival and it is great to see that people actually use them instead of creating piles of rubbish all around the place. We also get many compliments about our toilets, we have staff working non-stop around the clock, checking the toilets every half an hour. We don’t have 5 star toilets as such but compared with the booths that you sometimes get at festivals and the state they are in after one day, our toilets do look like 5 star ones. Also, the showers are something that brought the people back and I get so many good comments about them, especially from women. Some girls say, I'll come back next year as your toilets and showers are very clean and it is so nice to have this luxury at the festival”. Leung is the main man who organises everything from his location in Koh Phangan and Jorg is the main man at Koh Toa, responsible for arranging everything at the location where the festival is actually taking place. Both of them need to work hand in hand as there is a lot of work to be done at Koh Tao that cannot be organised from Koh Phangan, such as looking after the land where the festival is situated. These two are the most important characters at The Experience festival and then there is the rest of the team. Jo is responsible for the PR side of things, such as contacting the DJs, sending out emails and booking the artists who are chosen by Leung. It is an efficient cooperation between them both. Sometimes Leung asks Jo if he, knows a good DJ and it is Jo’s job to recommend a name as Leung doesn’t use the Internet. However, with parties such as Blackmoon culture running the whole year, Leung has got a chance to meet new faces and then if he likes someone, he will book them for The Experience festival too. In the end, it is his choice, he finds DJs through different connections in Koh Phangan and recommendations from other festival organisers and it doesn’t matter if you are the best DJ in the world (if such a thing exists), if Leung doesn’t get a good vibe from you, he will not book you. This is also the reason why the vibe at the festival is so good. All the artists involved have more or less the same mind set and are all eager to please the crowd, which plays a crucial factor in the quality of their performances. Undeniably, The Experience festival is a memorable event that is guaranteed to stay in the memories of many people forever. However, I was interested to know how the last Experience festival compared to the previous years. When I asked Jo about his thoughts, as he is the one who has seen the festival growing to what it is today from the very first day, he said; “The best one! Like I mentioned it before, it is the people that create the festival and this year the atmosphere was truly amazing and very touching. (Without of course saying anything negative about people from the years before.) Many times during this year’s festival I was standing in the DJ booth, looking at the crowd of people who don’t know each other, but talking to one another with a big smile, connecting together even though they have never met in their lives before, it really made me feel great to see it. Also, the weather this year was kind to us, compared with last year’s two days of heavy rain. For me this year the quality of people was astonishing, something special really happened this year and I would describe it as 10+. Lastly, the vision for the future is to book more international DJs by making the festival better and increasing the standards. It has to be underlined though, that the organisers don’t want the festival to become commercial. Keep it small, keep it special. Always when we earn some money, we put it back to the festival, like we did this year by installing a completely new DJ booth that cost us a small fortune. Whatever extra we get, we invest it back into the festival. Quality is the most important thing to us,” Jo Moontribe concludes. With the unbeatable location on the tropical island, fantastic atmosphere, great inspiring people, excellent organisation, quality psychedelic music, The Experience Festival never stops to blow away the minds of both newcomers and regular visitors year after year. If I was to sum up the way I felt after the festival just in one word, I would say . . . Experienced! To finish up, some thoughts that others have shared with me about the festival: DJ Suduaya: The Experience festival was a such a nice gathering of people and good music, in a lovely location. First time playing there and as well, first time in Thailand, loved it! The vibe was great, and everything was well organised, from my side I'm very glad with all that happened. Definitely wanna come there again, NYE is so special under the Sun! DJ R`Deem: This festival always feels a bit like coming home. This year was again an unforgettable adventure. DJ Jonnie: Once again the 2013 Experience was an event enjoyed immensely by everyone who was lucky enough to be there. This is a festival which gets just better and better every year. The open minded organisers always pay special attention to small details and are always striving to improve. Everything from the line up to the toilets to the security is carefully planned and carried out with care. At this magical gathering you can really sense a unique and unforgettable atmosphere, found nowhere else in the world. DJ Ital: Unforgettable! DJ JimaJama: This was my second time playing at The Experience festival and both times stand out as the favourite gigs that I have done. Coming back here was amazing, rekindling old friendships made the first year and embarking on new ones as well. There is something special about this festival, it brings with the crowd and then follows with the people involved in organizing it, it all just works very well. It has been an honour to be part of it and there is no doubt the long journey over from Ireland is worth every minute! Really enjoyed all of the 4 days on Koh Tao, and then back at Ban Sabaii for the after party to finish it all off, great memories! Sonic Species: I have had so much fun playing here, The Experience is the place to be in Thailand. Tom Rom, the editor of mushroom magazine and the editor in chief of Goa book: Experience is the biggest Psytrance festival in the world for new years eve apart from Universo Paralello in Brazil. It gathers fraggles from around the world in one of the most beautiful locations and is THE festival to go in the winter season. The international character and the amazing Thai DJs form a perfect arch through all the Psytrance genres. DJ Sebidelica: Truly a magical experience! Nuri, stage manager: Amazing organisation, it is a real pleasure to work here. All images courtesy of Agnes Klos, The Experience Festival and Digital Thangka. Not to be reproduced without permission. Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Agnes Klos: Back2Basics - 10 Years of Party Productions & Tomorrowland Stage Hosts Atmosphere Records - The opening of IBIZA 1936 Entering the world of Waldfrieden in Germany with DJoanna Piracy is not a crime – sail away with Feestgedruis! Progressive flavours with DJ R'Deem ahead of Neelix party The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable. Comments:

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