Prologue Journal

Raving in the rice fields: The man behind Hong Kong’s secretive parties held in spectacular rural settings

• prologu5
• 10/05/202410/05/2024

Hong Kong Free Press

Boutique electronic music festival Midori is returning to spectacular private farm in rural Hong Kong next weekend for an even bigger instalment. HKFP catches up with Omni Agency co-founder Adam Wright who – along with events outfit Y2K – is behind the intimate three-day event.

The one-time music journalist explains how he pulls off a party in the middle of nowhere, why rural settings are best, and what the future holds for Hong Kong’s festival scene.

How did you come up with the idea of Midori?

We’ve been watching with great interest the emergence of boutique electronic music festivals around Asia during the past few years – events like Organik in Taiwan, Labyrinth in Japan, Equation in Vietnam, Magnetic Fields in India and so on. Omni has been specialising in intimate outdoor electronic music events in Hong Kong for a few years now, and when our friends from Y2K came on board to help produce an Omni event earlier this year, we found we had a lot in common. We were all particularly interested in trying to develop this boutique festival concept in Hong Kong and bringing things up a notch.

On our side, we have years of experience with electronic music events, and Nathan Cornish and his Y2K outfit not only have a great track record with DJ events but also with other elements such as markets, block parties and more experiential programming. It was obvious that together we had all the background and expertise to create the kind of event we were thinking of, and Midori was born earlier this year. 

How does Midori differ from other festivals in Hong Kong?

We are trying to create a memorable experience – not just throw a party. Electronic music is an important aspect of what we do, and music is obviously the backbone of a music festival, but Midori is just as much a celebration of Hong Kong’s spectacular natural environment and our city’s unique culture and the diverse people who live here.

The festival takes place in a stunning hidden valley with a lot of cultural significance and we really aim to highlight our location. Some of our workshops completely immerse festivalgoers in these beautiful rural surroundings and even the journey to the event itself is pretty unforgettable, taking people through a range of stunning environments they’ve probably never seen before.

Camping is also an important aspect – we’re setting up in a spectacular but fairly remote corner of Hong Kong, and if you’re going to get the most out of the experience you don’t want to be worrying about how to get out after dark. Even though you can, of course.

Plus, having a campground helps build the kind of community spirit that we absolutely love. We’re trying to create a well-rounded festival so we’re also building a lot of fun stuff on the sidelines: there’s an outdoor cinema with presentations on things like music production and environmental issues as well as late-night film screenings, and a fairly random carnival tent called the Marquee of Mystery where people can win artist merch and play retro video games. And not far from the festival site there’s a peaceful beach and waterfall pool for people to explore.

Even if you’re not into electronic music you’ll have plenty to see and do at Midori.

Midori is set in a pretty rural location – how does it work, logistically, to get all the gear out there?

All of our outdoor events have been in remote locations – they have to be, to avoid noise complaints and to bring people out of their comfort zones a little – so we’re getting pretty good at the logistics. But yeah it’s hard work.

We usually move on site four days before an event and set up our campsites. Camping with the crew is one of my favourite parts as we all get to hang out and cook dinner together after a heavy day.

Over the following three days before doors open, a lot of blood, sweat, tears and swearing goes into moving tonnes of sound system hardware, lighting gear, liquids and festival supplies onto the site. Our venues are rarely near any roads, so this is all done with boats and electric vehicles.

One of the biggest challenges is ice – next time you enjoy an ice-cold drink at one of our events in the middle of nowhere, please take a second to appreciate what it took to get those cubes into your cup!

What kind of other workshops and activities can festival-goers look forward to?

On both the Saturday and Sunday mornings, there’s guided tours that go into the fascinating history of the location and show festivalgoers how rice is cultivated. And DJ Chingyi will be taking a small group on a foraging tour – wild food grows all around our venue and restaurants like Petrus source some of their more exotic ingredients there.

On the Saturday, we also have a bunch of workshops with Dimple Ceramics, where people can create their own mug or plate to take home, and our friend Dustin Mason will be hosting some frame-making workshops where people can make their own gorgeous wooden picture frame. Throughout the weekend there’s also a marketplace with stalls selling cool stuff like jewellery, camping equipment, clothing and more, plus some great F&B vendors to keep everyone fuelled up.

All of this adds to the community spirit we’re trying to create. So there’s plenty of fun and games to be had.

What kind of people are you targeting?

Midori welcomes everyone (but we are strictly an 18+ event and require registration on our website). Events like this obviously take a bit of commitment, but we think a lot of Hongkongers will benefit from a break from the city and enjoying some music and nature over this October long weekend, especially now the weather is cooling down.

But if you’re into listening to quality electronic music pushed out of a big sound system in a beautiful natural environment, I’d recommend our festival pretty strongly.

How do you select the artists?

Midori is an underground electronic music festival so we exclusively feature underground Hong Kong DJs. We’re not into commercial dance music or EDM, but we’ve programmed a super eclectic, accessible lineup that over the course of three days covers everything from proper techno and euphoric house to drum n bass and dubstep.

And it’s all delivered by many of Hong Kong’s leading DJ collectives on a huge sound system that we are breaking our backs to bring to the farm. We’re super proud of this line-up – it’s going to be a real journey. 

In the UK, around 100 festivals disappeared this year – do you think the dominance of Ticketmaster and Live Nation are a concern in Asia too? Is there support for independent, grassroots events?

Big international companies aren’t really a problem for grassroots events like ours in Hong Kong. Festivals in the UK have been shutting down because the market has become completely saturated and people literally can’t go to all of them. We have the opposite problem: there aren’t many festivals like this in Hong Kong, but we’d love to think that this city of almost 8 million people could support a least a few of them.

We are confident about the future here in Hong Kong: a healthy culture and arts scene not only requires input from a wide variety of people and personalities, but also the support of the people who are into these things, so that events can survive and continue. 

How would you like to see the festival scene develop in Hong Kong?

No doubt this is an interesting time for the Hong Kong festival industry. We can see events of all shapes and sizes mushrooming across the city, many of them staged by our friends and many of them even receiving official support. This is all super promising and we’d love to see this current enthusiasm evolve into something permanent.

Hongkongers deserve to enjoy the wide range of festivals and experiences that we see happening in many cities throughout Asia and overseas, and everything needed to make that happen is already here. Especially if we work together or collaborate, as we’ve seen with the wide variety of organisations and DJ crews who have all come together to make Midori possible, there’s probably nothing we can’t do at the moment. 

Tickets:

Tickets for Midori 2024 are available now.

• 12pm Fri Oct 11 to 2pm Sun Oct 13 at a secret outdoor location.
• Friday: (12pm Fri Oct 11 to 2pm Sat Oct 12): $480 (first release), $580 (final release).
• Saturday: (10am Sat Oct 12 to 2pm Sun Oct 13): $480 (first release), $580 (final release).
• Full long weekend tickets: $680 (first release), $780 (final release).
• Campsite pass: $100 per tent space. BYO camping gear or rent separately from venue (DM on Instagram for details).

Set in a beautiful valley during the public holiday weekend, Midori showcases an A-list selection of Hong Kong house, techno and bass music DJs, along with F&B, workshops and market stalls. Revellers can look forward to next-level lighting and laser engineering by Greenlight Lighting, and festival decoration by Point Of You Design. And campers can enjoy warm showers and toilets, as well as a waterfall pool just 10-minutes from the site.

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