Bringing Southeast Asia to Wrexham: AXEAN Festival at FOCUS Wales 2026

This May, AXEAN Festival travelled to Wrexham for FOCUS Wales 2026, one of the UK’s leading international showcase festivals and music conferences. Co-founders Py Piyapong Muenprasertdee and Satria Ramadhan made the trip — Py’s travel supported by British Council Wales — to represent AXEAN on the conference program and to put four Southeast Asian artists in front of a new audience.

Two panels

Py spoke on two conference panels during the week. On Thursday 7 May, he joined Roots in Focus: Sustaining Diversity in Music, and on Saturday 9 May he returned for the British Council–presented Global Perspectives: Seeing the World Through a Cultural Lens, offering the view from Southeast Asia alongside delegates from across the world.

Both sessions came back to the work that drives AXEAN: building knowledge of and recognition for Southeast Asian music and its artists, and connecting regional scenes to the international industry.

Four artists at Hope St Church

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On Friday 8 May, we hosted our showcase and mixer at Hope St Church. The bill brought together four acts from across the region, all of whom have appeared at previous editions of AXEAN Festival:

Logic Lost (Indonesia)
Muri (Philippines)
Xandega (Indonesia)
Su San (Malaysia)

Around 200 people came through across the afternoon — delegates, public, and fellow festival folk — to hear what Southeast Asia sounds like right now. Below is a short video reel of the trip including snippets of the performances taken and edited by Satria Ramadhan.

The AXEAN table

We also brought a taste of home. Alongside the music, we set out crispy silkworm pupae and bamboo caterpillars (sea salt flavour) for people to try, with Mekhong Thai rum to wash them down. Some approached cautiously, some came back for seconds. Either way, it gave people a reason to stop, talk, and stay a little longer.

From FOCUS to AXEAN

FOCUS Wales is a place to make introductions and start conversations, and that’s exactly what we set out to do. But we hoped people would leave remembering more than the names on the bill. We wanted them to remember the music, the artists, and the hospitality that came with it — the small, particular things that make Southeast Asia worth knowing. That’s the part we carry back with us, and the part we’ll bring to every edition of AXEAN Festival.

AXEAN Festival 2026 runs 29-30 August at Jimbaran Hub, Bali, Indonesia.

Listen to some music: