Kaweewat Siwanartwong

  What beats a margarita or two after a long day? Not much, honestly. And this month, Bangkok gets a whole run of them. PATRÓN launches Margarita Your Way, a month-long love letter to the world's most famous tequila cocktail, on now until July 31 and turning the city loose on flavour, discovery and a proper bit of self-expression. The heart of it all sits on the M Floor of Siam Paragon, where the Margarita Your Way Pop-Up poses one simple question. Which one are you?  Four personalities set the tone – classic, fruity, spicy and cool – each a different attitude, a different flavour, a different way of drinking. Are you the purist? The fruity show-off? The one who orders a chilli rim and dares the table to keep up?

The weekend is nearly here, and Bangkok is not taking it quietly. We’ve rounded up the concerts, exhibitions, markets, workshops and late-night parties worth leaving the house for.  Start at Cloud 11, where Toob North traces the roots of northern Thai creativity through food, craft and community traditions. Expect Chiang Mai coffee roasters, fragrant khao soi, handmade pottery, exhibitions and workshops. Then head east to Hua Takhe Old Market, where Rakdok Floral Weeks 2026 fills timber shophouses and canalside walkways with 20 installations created by artists, competition winners and local residents. After dark, Samyan Mitrtown’s fifth Lantern Art Festival lights up the plaza with giant floral works. Over in Talad Noi, The Warehouse Flea Market stays open until midnight with vintage clothes, records, handmade goods and street food. Gallery-hopping? The Maxnifier VI International Print Exhibition gathers work from artists across the globe, while DAYY turns cardboard boxes, tape and shipping labels into painstaking trompe-l'œil paintings about value and perception. Film fans can settle in at Bangkok Kunsthalle for Sunday Cinema, a biweekly programme pairing Thai classics with international favourites. For something hands-on, make your first zine or try a beginner-friendly disco pole session. Slower plans are covered too: grab a coffee and claim one of the bright pink swing loungers beneath Lumphini Park’s new Green Bridge space. Sometimes that is all a weekend needs. When in d

When it comes to art and exhibitions, Bangkok has a lot. From poky little independent spaces to avant-garde galleries and the big crowd-pleasing museums, the city brims with shows that perplex, challenge, inspire, educate and leave you thoroughly awestruck. The trouble is, there's an absolute mountain to get through. Too much, you might say. So we're here to tell you where to spend your precious time. Whether you're a bona fide art connoisseur or simply the type who likes to stand about looking pensive in front of a canvas (we've all done it), these galleries promise to inspire and entertain in equal measure. So if you're wondering what's genuinely worth a trip across town, start right here. Have a browse through the best museum exhibitions and art in Bangkok at the moment, take your pick and make a day of it. We refresh this list regularly, so do pop back regularly for our latest and greatest picks.Stay one step ahead and map out your plans with our round-up of the best things to do in Bangkok. Whether you're a regular gallery-goer or just art-curious, these are Bangkok’s best spots to live the art life. From alleyway masterpieces to paint-splashed corners you might walk past without noticing, here are our top spots to see street art.

You've probably seen the look before you've heard the name. The head tilts back, the eyes go wide, there's a held beat of silence, and then the camera swings up to a neon skyline or a stretch of white sand. The man doing the looking is Travis Leon Price, and at 35, the Donegal-born creator has spent the last five years in Bangkok, amassing more than 500,000 followers across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram who tune in for that signature slow, upward gaze of awe before a skyline or a shoreline reveals itself. Photograph: Travis LeonTime Out Bangkok His tagline, 'Bringing you the magic of Asia', sounds like marketing until you realise he means every word of it. He has slept in a 24-hour Chinese spa for the price of a takeaway, crawled the bars of Yaowarat and built a whole second life on an iPhone and a refusal to film anything corny. As busy as you would imagine, we never actually speak on the phone. The whole conversation is over WhatsApp, his replies are in clusters from elsewhere while Bangkok goes grey around me, then the little 'typing…' that flickers and stalls and starts again. He writes the way he talks on camera: warm, fast, unbothered by punctuation, a 'haha' dropped in before he's finished a thought. So, everyone, pour yourself a rooftop something and settle in. What follows is a love letter to a city that refuses to let him leave. Photograph: Travis LeonTime Out Bangkok A long way from a famine village Donegal to Thailand is not exactly a casual commute, and Travi

Lesbian venues aren't exactly a dime a dozen in Bangkok. The city does a roaring trade in bars and clubs that pull a mainly gay and bi male crowd, yet permanent spaces built for queer women, or trans and non-binary folk, remain frustratingly thin on the ground. You can count the long-running ones on one hand and still have fingers spare. Happily, the tide turns. Social media crowns this the year of the 'Lesbian Renaissance', and Bangkok plays its part with gusto. A growing roster of roving club nights now fills the gap, popping up across Sukhumvit, Silom and beyond the usual haunts, each one carving out a proper safe space where queer women party on their own terms. Discrimination gets left firmly at the door, the line-ups skew fresh and local and the welcome runs warm. Some come monthly, some quarterly, a few keep their locations hush until the last minute, half the fun is the chase. So whether you fancy sweaty basement raves, sapphic disco or a low-key spot to nurse a beer and make connections, the scene finally delivers. Hunting for your new favourite haunt? Here's our pick of the bunch. These venues span everything from dancing clubs to cosy bars and they're all genuinely welcoming to all genders

Some drinks work like a key. Ask any writer hunched over a keyboard at midnight, chasing the messy business of being human, and you may hear something similar: sometimes the second glass loosens what the first one couldn’t. Literature and drinking have long kept close company. Some writers turned bars into second homes. Others wrote about them as places of exile, romance, loneliness, glamour or escape. And a few, before the books made their names, worked behind or around the bar themselves. So here's a round-up, inspired by Koktail Kuisine's list, of Bangkok bars with a literary streak. Some wear the theme boldly. Others keep it tucked into the wallpaper, the music, the mood or the way a cocktail arrives like a sentence someone has worked on for hours. Book lover? Cocktail snob? These are your places.

The rain is arriving  almost every evening now, which means Bangkok's wet season is properly under way. Looking for a good excuse to dodge another downpour? Spend a few hours gallery hopping instead.  July's art calendar is packed with reasons to head out, from major new openings and long-awaited reunions to interactive installations and quietly compelling solo exhibitions. A few fresh creative spaces are also welcoming visitors for the first time, while several standout shows continue their run.  Whether you have an hour between coffee stops or a free Saturday afternoon to fill, these are the exhibitions worth catching across the city this month. Need more ideas? You can also fall back on our guides to Bangkok's best bars, restaurants, parks, and galleries, or work your way through our bucket list of the best things to do in Bangkok. Whether you're a regular gallery-goer or just art-curious, these are Bangkok’s best places to get your culture fix. From alleyway murals to paint-splashed corners you might walk past, here are our favourite spots to see street art in Bangkok. Subscribe to our free Time Out Bangkok newsletter and get the best of the city delivered straight to your inbox.

July is when Bangkok settles properly into the rainy season. It is also one of the fullest stretches on the city’s cultural calendar, so whether your idea of a good weekend involves live music, contemporary art, independent cinema or an afternoon rummaging through second-hand books, Bangkok gives you plenty of reasons to head out. Book lovers should start at Bangkok Book District Fest, which spreads across historic neighbourhoods including Phan Fa, Tha Tien and Nang Loeng. Independent bookshops open their doors, readings and gatherings run through the day and there are plenty of titles you are unlikely to find in chain stores. Film fans should also make room for the Taiwan Documentary and Film Festival, back with a line-up of hard-to-find documentaries and narrative features screening in Bangkok and Khon Kaen. By the river, Awakening Song Wat lights up one of Bangkok’s oldest riverside quarters after dark, placing light installations and digital artworks between warehouses, shophouses and narrow lanes you can cover in one evening. Music gets a strong showing too. Colorists Music Festival returns with a line-up spanning indie favourites, newer alternative acts and bigger crowd-pleasers, while JUST KIDS keeps things close-up with rising hip-hop artist Zambug and a community-minded approach to live shows. July looks busy, then. Carry an umbrella, keep some cash for books and merch and expect your weekends to fill up quickly. Keeping track of what's coming next? Our Bangkok  conc

We arrive on Decho Road in the afternoon, the sun still strong outside but the air pressure dropping, hinting that rain is on its way. It is unusual to be here before opening time, so we slip in through the back door and climb the stairs to a wine bar. In this wine bar, a small cinema is hidden behind curtained walls on the floor above and the dusty smell of old parquet fills our senses. That, near enough, is the whole idea. Photograph: Lalitphat BumrungkarnSala Saneha At a moment when independent picture houses around town are quietly going dark, Natchanon 'Vana' Vana, Pakapol 'Meang' Srirongmuang and Dit Thanasresthavilai have chosen to walk the other way. They have taken things they love – movies, wine, food and books – and poured them into a close-to decade old building, with help from more than a dozen friends drawn from the world of entertainment and art.  The result is Sala Saneha, a place built on the faintly old-fashioned conviction that going out to the pictures ought to feel like romance again. Photograph: Lalitphat BumrungkarnSala Saneha I met the three of them upstairs in the bookshop, on soft chairs among the wood – cladding the walls, forming the bookshelf, the floor, the table, the chairs – and as the early afternoon light came through the leaves just outside the windows, we began to talk. Photograph: Lalitphat BumrungkarnSala Saneha A building with several past lives What was clear, is how exact they are about the conditions. The venue could not disturb

June marks the official start of Pride Month, though anyone paying attention knows the celebrations rarely stay contained to four weeks. Across Bangkok, galleries, clubs, restaurants and public spaces roll out programmes honouring LGBTQIA+ communities while making room for protest, conversation and the simple joy of taking up space together. Some gatherings lean political. Others just want you dancing under disco lights until midnight. Both matter. This year's line-up covers everything from large-scale parades and drag showcases to film screenings, speed dating nights and art festivals built around queer storytelling. One evening might find you watching voguing performances above the city skyline, another screaming sapphic pop lyrics in a crowded bar off Silom Road. Rainbow branding arrives right on cue every June, but Pride carries far more weight than a seasonal marketing campaign. Its history is political, personal and deeply tied to communities still fighting for safety, visibility and equality. So whether you’re here for the parties, the performances or the people, these are the Pride events worth adding to your calendar this month. Joining the Bangkok Pride parade? Here's everything you need to know before showing up.

We keep this article updated regularly to make sure everything stays accurate and current, pop back anytime for the latest. So 2025 was pretty huge for live music in Bangkok, wasn't it? We had Doja Cat, BLACKPINK, TV Girl, The Smashing Pumpkins and Tyler, The Creator all gracing stages across the city. Not a bad lineup. The good news? 2026 is looking just as packed. Alright, Oasis might not be on the cards just yet, but there's still a serious roster of artists lined up to play Bangkok stadiums and arenas over the coming months. And rumour has it even more big names are yet to announce tours like BTS. Givēon, Central Cee, Taeyong, Kraftwerk... the list goes on. Whether you're into R&B, grime, K-pop or electronic legends, there's something coming your way. Here are the best major gigs heading to the capital this year.  

June in Bangkok means sweaty afternoons, sudden downpours and permanently questionable hair, but the city rarely lets a bit of rain ruin its social life. Between storm clouds and iced coffees, the calendar quickly fills with riverside markets, free music festivals, film screenings and enough vintage shopping to destroy your budget before payday arrives. PUBPEAB Zine Fair returns with handmade books, risograph prints and crafty workshops for anyone romanticising a life spent making tiny publications. Music lovers are spoiled too. A free festival inspired by France’s Fête de la Musique spreads across One Bangkok and Alliance Française with more than 30 acts covering indie, jazz, hip-hop, mor lam and Ballroom performances celebrating Voguing culture. Elsewhere, the EU Film Festival 2026 brings thoughtful cinema from across Europe to venues including House Samyan and Lido Connect – completely free if you arrive early enough. Vintage hunters should make time for the riverside slow market and the latest Made By Legacy gathering at Pat Arena, where stylish crowds rummage through rails of secondhand fashion, vinyl and deeply unnecessary collectibles. Prefer something slower? Bangkok’s  laid-back Books and Beers festival happily encourages both reading and day drinking. Frankly, June stays packed. Keeping track of what's coming next? Our Bangkok  concert roundup for 2026 stays updated with the latest gigs worth adding to your calendar. Stay one step ahead and map out your month with o

Sitting 22 floors above the buzz of Sukhumvit Soi 11, Pastel Rooftop Bar & Mediterranean Dining ranks among Bangkok's finest spots for pairing high-end plates with a lively, party-ready night out. Set atop the Aira Hotel, it serves up sweeping skyline views and a look borrowed straight from the sun-soaked French Riviera. Living up to its name, Pastel dazzles with soft pastel tones, nautical touches, modern murals and shifting neon lights that change colour as the evening rolls on. Cleverly laid out across three distinct zones, the venue gives you plenty of reasons to stay from dinner right through to the small hours. Soi Sukhumvit 11. Open Every day, 5pm-1am. Call 095 703 5679.

Perched on the 12th floor of The St. Regis Bangkok, this bar claims a prime view over the smart Royal Bangkok Sports Club – a dream spot for afternoon tea or a Sunday cocktail while the horses thunder round the track below. The long black marble counter is where it all happens. Drinks run from the fuss-free G&T to the properly historic bloody mary, first mixed at the St. Regis New York back in 1934. And the Bangkok crew give that tomato-based classic a local twist, lacing it with a hit of Thai spice that wakes the whole thing right up.  159 Rajadamri Road. Open daily, 24 hours. Call 02 207 7777

Sitting pretty in the thick of Ratchaprasong, Raynue is Bangkok's slick new lifestyle lounge and rooftop dining spot. You'll find it across the 3rd and 4th floors of the iconic Gaysorn Amarin building, with a handy skybridge link straight from Chit Lom BTS. Billed as an 'auditory social lounge', the space marries postmodern and contemporary looks, drawing cues from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, all crowned by an open-air terrace, polished design and a premium Void Acoustics sound system. Best of all, Raynue shifts with the clock. Menu, music and mood flow from day to night, so the whole vibe reinvents itself depending on when you drop by. Gaysorn Amarin, 3rd Floor. Open daily, 8am-12am. Call 092 976 6995

Fancy a night that plays more like a Barcelona blowout than a quiet dinner? VASO Spanish Tapas Bar is one of Bangkok's hottest tables. Tucked inside the smart Velaa Sindhorn Village on Langsuan Road, it's famously tricky to book, pulling in the city's social set, food obsessives and night owls alike. VASO reworks the traditional Spanish tasca with a slick, modern edge, its curved Mediterranean lines wrapped around an open kitchen and a sprawling counter bar. Choose the lively 'Blanco' room or the intimate 'Negro' space. Chefs plate up inches away, a DJ sets the beat and a giant bell rings out for 'la buena vida'. Velaa Sindhorn Village, 87 Lang Suan Road. Open Daily, 12pm-3pm and 5:30pm-12am. Call 098 914 4664

Gigi Eatery at Sacha's Hotel Uno suits just about any plan, whether you're cafe hopping, easing through brunch or settling in for dinner and drinks. Playful pops of colour lift the modern room, and those tall windows in the second dining area keep everything bright and airy. The kitchen leans authentically Italian, turning out burrata salad, pappardelle rosa and risotto, with a cheese board to linger over and vegan choices on hand too. Save room for pudding – the strawberry mille-feuille, honey-pressed croissant and tiramisu are all worth ordering. Keep an eye on their social channels for the latest live music line-ups. Soi Sukhumvit 45. Open Thursday-Monday, 6pm-1am. Call 094 894 8095

Not far from Sing Sing Theatre, this bar wraps you in dim red velvet, its walls and ceilings drowning beneath thousands of gin bottles for a steampunk-submarine effect. Iron Balls has earned Bangkok a spot on the craft distillery map, brewing tropical-leaning gin in a German-imported copper still at its Ekkamai bar-slash-distillery. Now there's a second outpost in Phrom Phong, built around punchy cocktails that put the house in centre stage. Every corner reflects owner-designer Ashley Sutton's maximalist vision – brassy trimmings, sleek leather chairs, hard-hat diving masks. Empty distilling vessels and bottles dangle overhead, and suddenly you're underwater, adrift among a thousand rising bubbles. Soi Sukhumvit 45. Open Monday-Sunday, 8pm-2am. Call 063 225 1331

The Shed BKK is the new eatery collective from Rongros Dining Group, throwing its doors open daily from 11am to 11pm. It's built for anyone who rocks up hungry, thirsty or both, gathering a proper spread of kitchens and bars under one roof. Fancy Thai-style seafood? Horsamut has you covered. From there the cast rolls on through bimbo for mediterranean plates, bou bou for dessert-led drinks and casabon for Pacific Rim flavours. When it's time to slow down, the Shed cellar pours something special from its wine list, while the Shed bakelab keeps things homey with fresh bakes.  Soi Sukhumvit 26. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11am-11pm. Call 084 169 6562

With both open-air and indoor seating, this is a proper spot for people-watching, late-night lounging and soaking up a soundtrack of hip-hop or chill beats. The kitchen deals in hearty Mexican-American fusion comfort food, from bottomless 'all-you-can-eat' taco deals to sizzling fajitas, mountainous nachos and moreish jalapeño cheese balls. Drinks are where it really shows off, though. The list leans hard on a well-chosen line-up of tequilas, mezcals and house margaritas, with the jalapeño margarita earning a loyal following of its own. It's the sort of place you drop by for one round and somehow stay for three. Fair warning, that is. Soi Sukhumvit 13 (2nd Floor of Margarita Storm). Open 24 hours, daily. Call 02 651 1153

CHUPA BKK sits on the 45th floor of the T-One Building, right in the thick of Thonglor and Ekkamai. Tucked directly beneath the world-famous Tichuca Rooftop Bar, it's the luxury club everyone spills into once the sundowners are done and the dancing beckons. The look is pure futuristic fantasy, all Avatar-meets-galaxy drama. Neon LED structures trail down from the ceiling like glowing tree roots, a clever nod to the enormous illuminated tree holding court at Tichuca just one floor up. High-energy, high-gloss and high above the city, it's where the night properly kicks off. ​​Soi Sukhumvit 40. Open daily, 8pm-2am. Call 083 494 5666

Tucked along Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra Road in the heart of Bangkok's business district, a short stroll from Chong Nonsi BTS, sits this beloved vintage-style pub and cocktail bar. It channels the mood of an old-school European or Irish tavern, pairing a serious spirit list with the easy, sociable warmth of a neighbourhood local. The whole place revolves around 'Uncle Joe', a fictional gruff, bearded chef-bartender with a soft spot for cigars, hearty food and late-night company. Set across two floors, the bar leans hard on its retro charm – warm, dark earthy tones, heavy wood panelling, plush velvet seats and a striking mural of the enigmatic Uncle Joe, drink in hand. Soi Sukhumvit 42. Open Wednesday-Sunday, 11am-7pm. Call 095 861 6886

Sits on Silom Road just a short walk from Sala Daeng BTS, this slick speakeasy plays its cards close to its chest. The name's a wink, and the whole vibe follows suit – no towering shopfront, no shouting for attention. Word-of-mouth does the heavy lifting here. What you get instead are quiet little hints for the curious, chief among them a glowing martini glass beamed onto the pavement outside. Half the fun is finding the door at all. First-timers often hover a moment, second-guessing themselves, before they finally give it a push and step through.  Soi Sukhumvit 42. Open Wednesday-Sunday, 11am-7pm. Call 095 861 6886

Naam 1608 hides down a slim alley off Song Wat Road in Bangkok's historic Chinatown, and finding it feels like a small victory. Perched right on the Chao Phraya River, this laid-back charmer shifts easily from a mellow daytime cafe to a buzzy evening dining spot as the light fades. It lives inside a rustic wooden house, all warm timber and easy character, offering a proper breather from the clatter and crush of the surrounding streets. Come for a lazy coffee by the water, linger for dinner as the boats drift past. A hidden gem, sure, but one well worth the hunt. 1608 Song Wat Road. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11am-10pm. Call 091 936 1632

Missed the last free World Cup public screening? This is your final chance! JAS and Monomax stage 'FIFA World Cup 2026: One Night One Champion' at Vachirabenjatas Park (Rot Fai Park), a free live screening of the final on a giant LED screen. Gates open at 11.30pm on Saturday July 19 in the Activity Area, and kick-off comes at 2am on July 20. Nap accordingly. Photograph: JAS GroupRod Fai Park The last one, on July 12, pulled a crowd big enough to make the point. On the night it fills up again, with people spread across the grass on mats, coolers open, phones propped up, everyone watching one screen. The park gets the full setup. Big screen, lighting and sound rigged so the whole thing lands like a proper stadium, plus a Pre-Match Talk with football pundits who will happily explain why your prediction is wrong. Live commentary runs throughout, so nobody sits there guessing at the substitutions. Photograph: JAS GroupRod Fai Park Need to know Vachirabenjatas Park (Rot Fai Park), Activity Area. Gates 11.30pm, Saturday July 19. Kick-off 2am, Sunday July 20. Free entry via Gate 3 only. Bring camping chairs, picnic mats and drinking water. No alcoholic drinks permitted on site. Entry is free. Everyone comes through Gate 3 of Vachirabenjatas Park (Rot Fai Park).

Cloud 11 launches a new series that goes looking for the roots of Thai creativity, and it does so through art, exhibitions, workshops, food, crafts and conversations with the actual creatives working in each region. The argument underneath it all is a good one. Thailand's contemporary culture has grown from the land, from the hands of its people and from ways of living handed down through generations. This first chapter puts that idea on the fifth floor of Cloud 11 and calls it Toob North. View this post on Instagram A post shared by KALM VILLAGE (@kalm_village) The setup is straightforward. Between 16 July and 30 August 2026, the space fills with Northern kitchens, roasters, potters and community groups who have made the trip down from Chiang Mai and the surrounding hills. You walk in to the smell of khao soi and grilled herbs, the sound of people chatting over their work and rows of handmade objects laid out for you to pick up and turn over. Admission costs nothing. Photograph: kintaamToob North Toob North organises itself around three ideas. Living Land reconnects you with the soil. Human Hand celebrates the artisans who still work slowly and by feel. Inner North makes room for a bit of quiet, with therapists and calmer corners for anyone who needs a breather. Chefs, baristas, bartenders and whole networks of makers turn up to fill in the detail. Coffee drinkers will do well here. Toffee Roasters, the Charoen Muang name that specialty types rate, brin

Film-watching happens alone now, mostly, on a screen the size of a hand. Bangkok Kunsthalle would rather you sat in a dark room with other people, which is the whole premise of Sunday Cinema, its film programme for the second half of the year. Curated by Rosalia 'Namsai' Engchuan, screenings run every two weeks at the Bangkok Kunsthalle Screening Room, a modest space in the old Thai Wattana Panich printing house on Charoen Krung, where the building's history sits in plain view around you. Photograph: Bangkok KunsthalleSamatcha Apaisuwan The selection gathers Thai classics, internationally garlanded work and recent films that still ask difficult questions about how we live. Postwar Japan one fortnight, the Amazon the next, then Mongolia, the Thai countryside, present-day Italy. The films speak to each other across decades. Sunday Cinema screening programme:  July 19 – 2046 August 2 – Fitzcarraldo August 15 – Drive My Car August 30 – Forever Yours (Chua Fah Din Salai) September 13 – The Songs of Rice September 27 – Shoplifters October 16 – Hiroshima Mon Amour October 25 – Country Hotel November 8 – Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia November 22 – La Chimera December 6 – Perfect Days December 20 – The Village Boss (Saming Ban Rai) Photograph: Bangkok KunsthalleSunday Movies Wong Kar-wai's love that never returns. Wim Wenders and a Tokyo toilet cleaner who finds his days sufficient. Herzog hauling a steamship over a hill because someone wants an opera house. Kore-eda's assembled fam

Tell us, did you go to the last one, and what did you do? After a few hundred people turned up to do nothing together, 'Do F**ing Nothing' is back for its second edition on August 1, 5pm-6pm at the Main Amphitheatre, Benjakitti Park. If you've been there, you know the drill. For those who haven't, here's how it works. You get 30 minutes. No reading, no writing, no phone, no talking, no music. You just sit still and try to be with doing nothing for half an hour. That's it. That's the event. Photograph: Lalitphat BumrungkarnBenjakitti Park The park is busy on a Sunday. Joggers loop the lake, a monitor lizard usually makes an appearance, someone's always doing aerobics by the clock tower. And in the middle of all that ordinary noise, a crowd of people quietly does absolutely nothing. Sitting getting uncomfortable? Lie down. You can daydream, meditate, take a nap or watch the clouds move. Nobody keeps score and nobody judges you, so long as you don't disturb anyone else using the park. And if you can't sit with it, you get up. You always have a choice. Nothing to prove here. Photograph: Lalitphat BumrungkarnBenjakitti Park When the 30 minutes end, you decide what happens next. Stay put. Talk to someone new. Or get up and carry on with your day. If you fancy the talking bit, gather in small groups of three to five. Ideally one person keeps the conversation going with two questions. Why did you come to sit and do nothing? And what happened during those 30 minutes? Take turns, s

If you've got a finished film sitting on a hard drive with nowhere to go, or you're after a cinema where your work can finally reach a real crowd, this one's worth a look. Doc Club & Friends has launched a new initiative called 'Your Cinema Project', built to give independent filmmakers a space to screen their work on the big screen at no cost, starting this September. For anyone who's lost touch, Doc Club is the longtime London home for lovers of independent and alternative cinema, and it's back. The venue has resettled at Cloud 11, with its screening programme up and running again earlier this year. Now it's widening its remit, going from a place that shows films to a platform for the people who make them. Filmmakers can screen their work, meet an audience and host their own post-screening Q&A if they fancy it. Here's how it runs. The project welcomes all kinds of independent film, short or feature-length, whether yours has never been seen or has already done the rounds elsewhere. Selected films screen from 12pm to 2pm on the third Saturday of every month, which makes for an easy Saturday afternoon out even if you're just going to watch. The flexible part is the money. Filmmakers choose whether to offer free entry or sell tickets themselves, and every penny of ticket revenue goes straight to the maker. Doc Club handles the promotion and the surrounding activities. If you're submitting a short, several can be grouped together as a single programme. Got just the one? The team

Union Hall on a Friday night in November. A room full of strangers sporting variations on the same immaculate bowl cut. That is roughly what awaits when Atsuko Okatsuka makes her Bangkok debut. The award-winning comedian and actress brings her new stand-up world tour, ‘The Big Bowl Tour’, to Union Hall on Friday November 27. It is a one-night only affair: doors, a support act and then 90 minutes with Okatsuka herself. Photograph: Atsuko OkatsukaThe Big Bowl Tour Okatsuka operates in a comic register entirely her own – dry, unhurried and occasionally alarming. Her routines circle her grandmother, her marriage and the small indignities of everyday life, yet somehow travel remarkably well. Her previous 'FULL GROWN' tour sold out more than 200 shows across over 100 cities and 20-plus countries, so she arrives in Bangkok with a formidable reputation and a bowl cut to match. Her second special, 'FATHER', landed on Hulu in the US and Disney+ elsewhere before climbing into Hulu's top 10 within days. The back catalogue is just as strong. Her HBO debut, 'THE INTRUDER', won the 2023 Gracie Award for Best Comedy Special, while The New York Times named it the best debut of 2022 and both Vulture and Variety ranked it among the year's finest. Otaksuka has also appeared on Variety's '10 Comics to Watch' list, earned a Best Comedian nomination at the Wowie Awards and delivered a memorable set on James Corden's late-night show. Online, she is everywhere. Clips from 'THE INTRUDER' have passed

The Museum of Old and New Art (​​MONA) – that celebrated institution perched in Hobart, Tasmania, the one that rethinks how a gallery should work – teams up with AWC to open 'MONA Bangkok' at Asiatique The Riverfront, right on the edge of the Chao Phraya. It's set for 2029. Asiatique already draws crowds each evening with its riverside night market, its restaurants and its Ferris wheel lit up against the water, so the location comes with a ready-made buzz.Here's why it excites us. This isn't a franchise flown in and bolted on. MONA arrives ready to be rewritten in Thai. Local artists, local stories and the particular character of this city all fold through the creative vision until the project becomes a genuine exchange. Leigh Carmichael, the DarkLab chief steering the work, says everything gathers around one idea: 'light'. Light as physics, light as hope and light as the warm glow Bangkok wears so well after dark.And then the cable car. The world's first to cross the Chao Phraya with no support pillars in the water, designed not merely as transport but as kinetic art, weaving colour, sound, movement and technology together so the crossing becomes part of the visit. You're enjoying the experience before you even reach the door.So what actually is MONA? The vision of collector David Walsh, it's the largest privately owned museum in Australia, and it does things differently. You carry 'The O', a handheld digital guide that lets you follow whatever grabs you through the ancient,

A cool breeze settles over Bangkok in late November, and with it arrives a haze of sound the city has waited a long time to hear properly. On November 30, Moonstar Studio hosts Slowdive, the Reading band widely credited as the architects of dreamlike soundscapes and the pioneers of that beautifully blurred world we call shoegaze. Their guitars shimmer with reverb and delay, layered thick enough that individual notes stop mattering, while Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell sing in voices that fold over one another and hush in your ear. You stop trying to work out who is singing what. That's rather the point. The band treat loneliness and sadness not as feelings to hide from but as quiet, liveable rooms, and they invite you to sit down in them for ninety minutes. Photograph: SlowdiveBangkok Anyone who wore out a copy of 'Souvlaki' in a teenage bedroom knows exactly what 'Alison' does to a crowd. 'When the Sun Hits' still lands the way it did in 1993. Newer songs such as 'Kisses' prove the group aren't coasting on nostalgia either, still writing music that aches in precisely the right places three decades on. Bangkok's own Death of Heather open the night, which is a lovely piece of programming. The Thai outfit make the same kind of melancholic noise and will have the venue thoroughly softened before the headliners walk on. Moonstar sits out in Bang Kapi, so give yourself time. Early Bird tickets start at B2,300, capped at 300. Presale runs to B2,600 and general admission on the

Bangkok gets loud. Bangkok gets fast. Every so often, though, Bangkok just wants to slow down, dress up and dance. That is the pull of Bangkok Ballroom Dancing, a one-night return to live big band music and old-school ballroom charm at Lumphini Hall. Staged by the Bangkok Music Division, the event feels right at home here. The hall spent its glory years as one of the capital's great social halls, the kind of place where couples crossed wooden floors while the horns swelled and the night stretched out. Generations of Bangkokians learned to dance in rooms like this, under high ceilings, within earshot of the park. Photograph: Jelly Roll Jazz ClubBangkok So you put on the shoes. You know the ones. Too good for the office, too formal for dinner, and almost never given a proper excuse to leave the wardrobe. Photograph: Lumphini hallBangkok A full band plays live, brass section and all, with the standards doing what standards do best. Maybe you count your steps under your breath through a tango. Maybe the last time you attempted a waltz was at someone's wedding in another decade. Maybe you come purely to sit near the music with a drink and watch strangers rediscover a cha-cha. All of it works. Nobody is marking you. Come early if you want a table near the floor, and bring a fan. Doors open at 5pm, the light through the windows softens as the evening goes on, and that is usually when the dancing gets good. Lumphini Hall, Sunday, July 26, from 5pm. Online registration opens July

Bangkok Design Week comes back next year, and it asks you to look at the city from a different angle. Design, art, creativity and the stories of the people tucked away in each neighbourhood, all of it running across eleven days in February. For those eleven days Bangkok stops being the backdrop and becomes the exhibition. Streets you've walked a hundred times acquire installations. Shophouses open their shutters. Old printing houses and rice warehouses in Talat Noi and Song Wat get cleared out and filled with something worth queueing for. Creative districts across town host workshops, art, music, walking tours led by people who actually live there, plus cafes and shops running on ideas that arrive that morning. February helps, too. It's the last stretch before the heat turns cruel, so walking six sois in an evening is a reasonable thing to do. At the centre of all this sits one question: 'What can design do?' Photograph: Bangkok Design Week 2026DESIGN S/O/S Not a rhetorical flourish, that. Design here isn't a mood board or a nice chair. It's a tool. It fixes things. It sorts out public spaces nobody wanted to sit in. It makes daily life marginally less annoying. It gives small creative businesses a shot at growing up alongside the city. And it asks you to wander through neighbourhoods you've never bothered with, past plastic stools and shrine offerings and a man selling grilled squid, meeting the people and the stories tucked in every corner. Sightseeing this is not. Photo

Another Thai name lands on the world stage. Phuket teenager Nene Royal takes 'Zombie' by The Cranberries to America's Got Talent, and all four judges say yes. She's 16, she writes her own songs, and she now goes through to the next round, one step closer to the sort of career she's been quietly building since primary school. The performance earns a standing ovation. All four judges talk about her musicianship, then about the charisma and energy they say a rock star needs.    She isn't a total unknown, mind. Thailand has been watching for years. Three million followers across her socials, an appearance on Super 10, first runner-up at the 14th Overdrive Guitar Contest in 2023, an Outstanding Player Award at the King Power Band Competition in 2025. Enya Music, the instrument brand, name her a Featured Artist. She picks up a guitar at six, teaches herself from videos on the internet and practises alone until the chords stick.   Photograph: neneroyalmusicAmerica's Got Talent Before the lights and the buzzers, she busks. Evenings and weekends in the markets around Phuket, guitar case open on the concrete, amp running off a borrowed extension lead, playing over the noise of woks and motorbikes and tourists sorting through racks of vests. Most people walk straight past. Some stop for a song, then carry on. You learn how to hold a crowd that hasn't chosen to listen, and once you can do that, a television studio holds no fear whatsoever. Global superstardom next, apparently. W

Late night bookworms, a lil treat for you this second half of the year. The Goethe-Institut Thailand Library keeps its doors open until 8pm on the first Wednesday of every month, a new ritual it calls the Late Night Library. It starts Wednesday, July 8 and runs through December, which gives you six chances to make a habit of it. The walk over from Surasak BTS takes about ten minutes, less if the pavement is behaving. Photograph: Goethe-Institut ThailandLibrary The clever bit is what happens to the rules. Talking is fine. Practising your German out loud is fine. Working in a group, huddled around one of the long tables, arguing about verb endings? Also fine. Snacks are permitted as long as they don't smell, and drinks are permitted as long as they have lids. It's free, and it's for everybody. The shelves hold more than grammar drills. Language material, yes, but also contemporary fiction, graphic novels, magazines and children's books. Members get Onleihe, the institute's digital library, which holds more than 20,000 e-books and assorted media, all of it free to borrow. Photograph: Goethe-Institut ThailandLibrary The rest of the week runs to a more conventional clock. Weekdays open at 9.30am, Saturdays run 8am to 5pm and Sundays 8.30am to 4.30pm. Head to the Goethe-Institut Thailand Facebook page for the fine print. Bangkok doesn't offer many places where you can read, talk, eat and loiter without someone expecting you to buy a coffee every forty minutes. The aircon is co