"Pa Ted" admits Big Mountain's attendance has dropped by half in a significant way, announces a major reset, declares this year's event must be cannabis-free — zero tolerance — and pledges to fix traffic, dust, and toilet problems to win back music fans and restore the festival to being the best in the country.
"Pa Ted" Yutthana Boon-om, the driving force behind the Big Mountain Music Festival (BMMF), has announced a full 100% reset of the event, setting the goal that "this year's event must have no one smoking cannabis," in order to restore the confidence of music fans. He candidly admitted that the quality of the event had declined to the point where attendance fell by as much as half over the past year.
In his latest interview with the press via Zoom, Pa Ted revealed that all four of the main complaints that have been received are now on the table and will be addressed in full. He pledged that Big Mountain must return to being the best music festival in Thailand.
"When I first started working in events, Big Mountain was the first major event I organized. But now, as you can see, GMM Show organizes many events in a year. My personal involvement in each individual event has naturally decreased, because I need to oversee the broader picture of multiple events. So I have to admit that in terms of the details of each event, I may not be diving as deep as I used to."
"In the old days there were no other events — there was only Big Mountain, so I was completely immersed in it. What was really fun back then was being active on social media, almost running the accounts myself. In more recent times I haven't been doing that. So when I received feedback from audiences and attendees, it came in only little by little. When I met people, they'd greet me with smiles, but some would mention concerns — that the toilet queues were very long, that the parking area had way too much dust."
"Because it came in dribs and drabs, I wasn't getting into the details the way I used to. But even though it came in bits and pieces, it kept coming — every time I read the comments on the Big Mountain page, or on posts I made about various topics on my own page, I could sense that certain things were coming up more and more often, that people were genuinely concerned about certain issues. Whatever could be fixed, I fixed."
"Then the last edition came around, and there were a number of things that reflected a point where I felt I couldn't just stay still, or fix problems the same old way I had before. I needed to take it more seriously than the last time."
"A lot of things were telling. The number of people who came to the event dropped in a statistically significant way. It's still a large number — even after the decline, it's still the Thai music festival with the highest attendance. But it used to be even higher."
"Today, attendance has dropped significantly. I reflected on myself, and with everything adding up, I knew I had to come out and do something — to tell the people who might be concerned, the people who are fans of our event, the people who used to come but have stopped coming in recent years. I need to say clearly: friends, I hear what you are saying. I acknowledge and recognize that these are real problems. As the person responsible, I need to state plainly that I accept that there are real problems. I hear what you are saying. That's the reason I made that post — to say that I hear you. I am not standing still."
"Everyone agrees that we want Big Mountain to be the best music festival — done right. When there are problems, we talk and solve them together. What I also want people to know is that we are not just listening. We genuinely want to fix these things. Before this, we had been in discussions continuously — we talked so much, we gradually researched the data, found a great deal of suggestions and feedback that we needed to analyze carefully. So I'm making it clear once again that we are aware of the problems and we intend to fix them."
"The things we've heard the most — among the suggestions from many people — are the very first issues we want to make a firm commitment to fix, and to treat as a national priority. We have heard about cannabis, traffic jams, dust, and adequate toilets. There are actually more issues, but these are the ones that come up most repeatedly. The first response to these concerns is to state our position — that we commit to fixing these problems."
"Fixing these problems has to start with changing the way we think. Beginning with resetting myself first. Going back to when Big Mountain first began, the spirit was that we set what we wanted — we wanted the best music festival. As time passed and the event grew bigger, certain things — especially that 'craziness' — were replaced by logic and reason. Once logic and reason became the framework for working, I personally felt, in a way, that the event became less crazy, more orderly — responding to logic and reason in order to manage an ever-larger crowd."
"So in fixing the problems, I'm going back to the very beginning. We're bringing that craziness back as our foundation. 'Craziness' here means not having to think within any box — whatever it takes to resolve what is a problem, we will do it, with the audience as our first priority."
"What I announced — people might think it's crazy: promising that the event will be dust-free. Is that even possible? I don't know, but I will do everything in my power to make it happen. Whatever it takes to keep cannabis out of the event. To let people enjoy themselves to the fullest without any obstruction. Whatever it takes so that people won't complain about there not being enough toilets, or that they aren't spread out. Whatever needs to change, it will all change. I will change everything to make Big Mountain the best possible music festival."
"What's important is that there is also a promise made to myself — this is our mission. We must change the way we think and the way we work, so that the solutions this time come out differently from before."
"As for how much attendance has dropped — Pa Ted revealed that compared to the years when Big Mountain had the highest turnout, about half the audience has gone. But compared to other music festivals, the numbers are still high. The thing is, if this many people have disappeared, it shows we haven't solved the problems well enough. It's not that we're desperate to get the same numbers back — what we're serious about is that we need to finally fix these problems. These are the same complaints that come back to us every single year."
"I'd rather not give a specific number for fixing the problems. Big Mountain is an event that involves heavy investment every year. But if you use the same methods to fix the same problems, you may get the same results. Right now, if you want new results, you have to change your approach. It may not even be about investing more money than before. I can't answer that yet, because there are things that still need to be thought through and worked out — nothing is finalized as of today. But what I can say is that it's not about the budget. It's about the mindset — choosing a different approach to solving things."
"The most severe problems — the ones I chose to post about — are cannabis, dust, traffic, and toilets. All four are difficult in their own ways. Cannabis is a matter of controlling people's behavior. For anyone who has attended in the past two or three years, we have had fairly clear rules on this, but people find ways to zigzag around those rules. We need to find a way to deal with people who try to circumvent them."
"Cannabis is already illegal. In one sense, you could say it's not entirely difficult — preventing illegal activities from happening at an event naturally gets the support of all parties involved."
"With traffic, we need to work with multiple parties, because the congestion doesn't just happen inside the event — it starts outside on the roads. Resolving this problem requires managing both inside and outside the venue, which means working with a range of stakeholders."
"Dust is like fighting nature. But it's also related to event preparation and site preparation, so it presents its own kind of difficulty."
"With toilets, there are two parts: the science — the statistical calculation of how many toilets are needed for a given audience size — and a bit of art: even if there are plenty of toilets, where should they be placed? If they're all clustered in one spot, it's inconvenient. They need to be distributed across different areas — how many should be at each point. That's its own kind of difficulty."
"It's hard to say which of the four is the hardest, but I'm singling them out as the four things people mention the most — the things they most want us to fix. There are actually more than that, but I've highlighted these four because they seem to resonate most with what people are genuinely concerned about."
"We will gradually begin announcing the details of all of this from next week onwards. In fact, many things have already been set in motion. But I want to take the time to put everything into a clear, easy-to-understand narrative — so that when we announce, everyone is on the same page. Announcements will start next week."
"As for whether we can announce 'zero cannabis' right now — that is exactly our intention. People have also mentioned other substances. Anything illegal must not happen at our event. We will make this crystal clear. We can announce right now: this event will have no cannabis."
"What I want to be clear about today — what I want to tell everyone — is that I and every member of the team are fully aware of what you are concerned about. We want to announce clearly that we have received and acknowledged the problems. We want everyone to be confident that we want to change everything to make Big Mountain a truly communal music festival. The details of each issue will start to be announced gradually from next week."
"The reason I'm holding some things back is that some of what we have is already excellent — but I want to leave room in case something even better comes along next week."
"All along, we have been solving problems continuously. But some years we use one approach, then the next year people find ways to zigzag around it. Over the past three years, we've had measures like cutting wristbands — if someone breaks the rules, we blacklist them from attending for up to three years depending on the severity of what they did. If it's illegal, we hand them over to the authorities immediately. We work closely with the authorities at every event — there's a sub-police station set up inside the venue. We have not been ignoring this. We've been chasing down and fixing problems all along. But some things, after being fixed, don't deliver 100% results — which means we have to find a better fix. The thing is, we've never publicly announced it — never said 'trust us, we're going to fix these things.' We've been doing the work quietly without making it known."
"We're doing this now so that you can be confident that the things you are concerned about — we have heard them, and we will resolve them successfully."
"Whether I'm stressed — I'm not someone who stresses easily, and I don't get paranoid. But there's a feeling when you set out to do something and it doesn't turn out the way you intended — you think, wait, why is that? What made our approach fall short? We need to fix it, adjust things, start fresh. It's the spirit, the mindset of us at GMM Show. We are self-critical all the time. We keep trying to fix things. But we tend not to announce to the world what we're fixing."
"We need a new approach, new results. The first thing to fix is this: if we've never announced it before, this time we have to. Even if announcing means people will say — wow, how can you promise there'll be no dust at the event? What happens if there is dust when the time comes? I don't know. But the announcement has to come first, and then we have to deliver. At the very least, it puts pressure on ourselves so we don't give up — so we find a way to beat these problems."
"(Is there anything you'd like to say to fans who are waiting?) P' Wua isn't going anywhere — we're right here in meetings together (laughs). So that we can come back and communicate on all the issues everyone has been wondering about. Most importantly, thank you for all the suggestions you've given us. Many of them are valuable. The volume of people raising each particular problem carries weight — it tells us how concerned people are. Some issues we may have overlooked, or seen from only one angle. When people share their views, we can see the same problem more clearly. So we have to say thank you."
"What I want to reaffirm once more — now that we are aware of the problems, we are not denying them. We accept that those problems exist. We have been trying to fix them all along, but we also have to admit that we need to fix them better than this — because you wouldn't be bringing up the problems this much otherwise. We promise we will fix things better, find better methods, so that Big Mountain is the best music festival — so that when you come to this event you have the fullest fun, leave with inspiration, and get everything out of it to the fullest."
"Anyone who makes the journey to Big Mountain is already ready to have fun. Nobody arrives in a bad mood. What we are especially determined to do is not to be an obstacle to that joy. We will sweep those obstacles away. This is the commitment, the promise we make to everyone. As the person responsible for this event, I promise this is what we will deliver this year and in every year to come."
"I can't say too much more yet, but I can say one thing: no matter which edition of Big Mountain you may have missed before — this one, you cannot afford to miss."
