Our Journey
A festival rooted in a permanent place
Awakenest is an annual festival within a permanent cultural and community place on Koh Phangan. Created and operated by Stayfly Studio Co., Ltd., it has developed through three completed festival editions: 2024, 2025 and 2026.
The annual gathering is one expression of a wider creative and community ecosystem. Garden areas, a kitchen, shared spaces, and facilities for music and sound support activity beyond the festival dates.
Three editions and a continuing journey
2024
The published 2024 programme listed music, movement, yoga, sound, conversations and creative activity across the Circle, Forum, Yoga Hall, Dome, Small Shala, Journest, Healing Huts, and areas for activities and families.
Across the three festival days, movement and yoga sessions, sound practices and Forum conversations took place in several spaces. The site also included a refill point, labelled waste-sorting stations, market paths, wayfinding and decoration made with leaves.
Students and teachers from Koh Phangan Suksa School ran a southern Thai food stall, and students from the school performed Tari Kipas and Nora.
A daytime session beneath the trees at Journest, 2024 2025
The published programme for 28 February to 2 March listed live music, movement, yoga, breathwork, sound, forums, art and making. It also included Thai traditional performing arts, an Education on Koh Phangan Forum, and community-focused food and craft activity.
Schools and community groups from across the island took part. Wat Sri Thanu School students made art with natural sa paper, and Ban Maduea Wan School brought coconut food and coconut-shell lamps, its students singing Chak Phra songs alongside women's groups from the Wat Rat Charoen and Sri Thanu communities.
Three monks from Wat Samai Khongkha chanted and offered blessings, and Koh Phangan Suksa School students presented their end-of-term performance of Nang Phisuea Samut.
Wat Sri Thanu School students at the artwork on show, 2025 2026
Awakenest's third edition took place from 14 to 17 February. Its published programme included music, movement and creative activity.
Four students performed traditional Thai music, trained by วรพล ธานีรัตน์.
Traditional Thai music at Awakenest Festival 2026 Continuing toward 2027
Development continues toward the next season.
- Awakenest Festival Season: February 2027
- Main Festival Gathering: 26 to 28 February 2027
A permanent-site model
Awakenest takes place within a site that is also active beyond the annual festival. Its garden areas, kitchen and gathering spaces create a setting for culture, food, conversation and shared practice. Stayfly Studio operates recording and production facilities at the site that are available to Awakenest.
This model allows spaces and production capability to be used again, while the festival remains the annual moment when the wider ecosystem comes together.
That activity carries on between editions. On 21 June 2024, the Music Lounge hosted an International Day of Yoga gathering that included a Nora performance by ฤทธิเดช หมวดทอง, a teacher from Wat Rat Charoen School, and the Medicine Circle gatherings are another strand of the same year-round cultural life, each an event in its own right.
Beyond the festival editions
Students from Koh Phangan Suksa School have also performed at other gatherings in the same cultural life. Each is an event of its own, held on its own dates and in its own setting: the Medicine Circle in 2023 and 2024, and Music Lounge by the Sea in Thong Sala in 2026.
Community participation
Four schools, two community women's groups and monks from one temple on Koh Phangan have taken part in Awakenest events since 2023. Students have performed Tari Kipas, Nora, Lao Siang Thian, Chak Phra songs and traditional Thai music, run food stalls, made art and lamps, and presented an end-of-term production; teachers have trained and performed with them; women's groups have sung; and monks have chanted and offered a blessing.
Some of that took place during a festival edition and some at gatherings between editions. The record keeps each event separate and says who did what, year by year.
What the model supports
Community and participation
Published programmes have included a local school and community contributors in talks, cultural items and community-focused activities.
Culture and creativity
Across the three editions, published programmes have included live music, Thai cultural performance, movement, yoga, breathwork, sound, conversations, art and making. These forms share one place while each edition carries its own emphasis.
Permanent place and infrastructure
The festival is held within a permanent site whose garden areas, shared spaces and music-and-sound facilities can be used beyond the annual gathering.
Music, sound and production
Stayfly Studio operates recording and production capability at the site, available to Awakenest and other activity. It provides a practical base for live music, recording and sound experiences.
Environmental direction
Environmental subjects have appeared in the programme. The 2024 edition also included a refill point and labelled waste-sorting stations.
Development across editions
Three completed editions have shaped Awakenest within a wider permanent place. Work now continues toward the 2027 season.