From Nov 15 to Nov 24, 2019, the streets and historical sites of Charoen Krung Road were transformed with digital light art. Last year we had heard about Awakening Bangkok but didn’t get a chance to attend but since there was a lot of hype behind it this year, we had to check it out.

Awakening Bangkok is hosted and organized by Time Out Bangkok, Tourism Authority of Thailand and Mitsubishi Motors.

Now neither of us are art enthusiasts per se, but we can appreciate things like this. I especially like to explore and experience new things. Also, who doesn’t like lights?

The journey and scene

I didn’t know where to start so I began by going to Saphan Taksin BTS by the pier and started walking down Charoen Krung road. On the way, I looked up if there was any map that indicated where all the light art installations were located. Bingo, I found a Google map Time Out Bangkok had created. I followed the route to the nearest spot. Alternatively, they were also giving out a printed map/brochure of the festival to help you locate the light installments.

It turned out that I started at the wrong end. There were 34 spots in total and I had basically started at 34, which was at Prince Theater Heritage Stay. Spot #1 was located at Lhong 1919. So I was going in the opposite direction but that’s alright. No biggie.

The distance between the starting and endpoints is about 3 km. It was a great way to walk and explore the streets in the area.

Now I thought that not many people would come to this, at least not on the first day. Boy, was I wrong!? At any given moment at a given spot, there were at least 20 people. As some locations, close to 100 or more. The crowd was a mix of art students or enthusiasts, media, bloggers, young local hipsters, and even a few tourists.

Photos and only photos

Enjoy the photos from Awakening Bangkok 2019.

By the way, Trybe is an app I am working on. It will help event-goers connect before and during an event. So yea just building some content for the app before it launches.

This is probably the coolest installation in the entire festival. The entire parking space under the Grand Postal building was transformed into a light and sound spectacle. I could imagine a small underground music festival happening here.

You really have to be there to really understand these light installations and artwork. It’s a fun and interesting way to spend a night in Bangkok that doesn’t involve nightlife partying or bars.

If you miss(ed) it this year, I’m sure it will be back in 2020. For more photos from the event, check out the hashtag on Instagram, which has over 12k photos!