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Good Vibes 2019

Good Vibes 2019 is the homegrown music festival that everyone looks forward to on an annual basis. With the biggest lineup yet, the organiser aimed to make this year’s edition the best. Did it manage to deliver?

Featuring two days of heart-thumping music, Good Vibes Festival (GVF) 2019 was attended by 20,000 festival goers at The Ranch, Genting Highlands in July.

Having started the festival in 2013, the crew decided to build a festival focused more on live music and different genres which was seen lacking in Malaysia.

“One of the first challenges we faced when starting the festival was to find our own identity and audience. The artist lineups largely define music festivals, and it was hard to curate the ideal lineup with the budget limitations we initially had. It’s been a long and difficult task to get to where the festival is right now. After a few years of struggling to hit our goals, we almost pulled the plug in 2016 – which was the year we switched venue to The Ranch at Genting Highlands and expanded to a two-day festival. Fortunately, that year was when the festival started gaining traction so we stuck to our guns and sure enough, the festival sold out for the first time the following year (2017),” said the Head of Content and Marketing at Future Sound Asia, Wan Alman Ariffin.

Good Vibes 2019
20,000 festival-goers at Good Vibes Festival 2019 / Photo by All Is Amazing (www.allisamazing.com)

This year, there are a lot of brand-new experiences prepared by the organiser: cashless payments, full-fledged electric fields, and for the first time, they brought in South Korean acts to perform at the festival. Despite all that, two festival goers found that there are a few things that the organiser can improve on to provide a better environment.

Azraei Abd Rahim, 25, who has been to GVF for the second time, hopes that GVF can introduce an eco-friendly environment such as providing water dispenser. This way, festival guests will feel less dependent on plastic water bottles.

Meanwhile, Tunku Amira Zahra, 27, thinks that the organiser should upgrade the ticket sales system as the website crashes almost every single year.

“This year, after the site crashed and it came back on, all ticket phases were open. A certain amount was released each time, and then it would appear as sold out. After a few minutes, it would come back and stated itself as available. So some people bought more expensive tickets thinking the earlier phases were sold out,” explained Amira.

Good Vibes 2019
Dean / Photo by All Is Amazing (www.allisamazing.com)

Although they have differing views, they agreed that the festival and the crowd have been growing as the years goes by.

“It’s also better for the organiser to prepare a better event layout as this year’s congestion is worse. Only one way in and out to the main stage is a bit problematic,” said Azraei, who works as a graphic designer.

As for Amira, who is attending the festival for the fourth time, hopes that the organiser will improve on how they deal with big crowds: “Aside from a long queue at the ticket counter, it was also crowded at the top up, food and bathroom area. It was a long line, and it took away from the entire experience. Ultimately, better crowd control is what I’m hoping for – more people being more hands-on with the ease and flow of things.”

As its stage is expanding, Alman briefed Pursuit about their plan for GVF 2020, and the possibility of moving to a bigger venue.

“We strive to make every edition of the festival the best one to date, so it’s always tough trying to figure out how to step things up for the next GVF! I would like to think we outdid ourselves with this one so it would be quite hard to top it off. However, we do have some plans in the pipeline, such as exploring more regional acts, possibly reconfiguring the layout of the festival and some other plans which I’d rather not say yet. Just stay tuned to our updates!”

“At the moment, The Ranch is our home, and we think it’s the perfect backdrop for the festival, as do our festival goers, so there are no plans to move. If the festival grows much bigger in the future, we might need to explore other venue options,” concluded Alman.

Good Vibes 2019
Photo by All Is Amazing (www.allisamazing.com)

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