Building Thailand’s Most Successful House Festival Brand & the Power of Network and Relationships - Coran Maloney (Kolour Thailand)

What does it take to turn a 200-person sunset party into Thailand's leading house and techno brand? I sat down with Coran Maloney, cofounder and managing director of Kolour, whose events have drawn more than 100,000 guests since 2011.

Coran moved to Thailand at 23 to work in his family's forestry business and started throwing parties on the side. We get into booking Sven Väth, the DJ who made him buy his first decks, the court case and US$150,000 of festival debt he faced as COVID shut events down, and the night his party boat sank, with Coran the last one off.

Then he shares his playbook: build the community first, sum up your event in one sentence people will repeat, spend 60 to 70% of the marketing budget in a launch as short as a week, and go where the crowd already is.