The Philippines’ premier pop culture and music festival &FRIENDS is hitting it off in Okada Manila in Paranaque City with EDM acts and content creators. Their CEO, Justin Banusing, doesn’t look like someone at the center of one of the year’s biggest pop culture festivals. Sitting in a studio wearing an exclusive DON’T BLAME THE KIDS x &FRIENDS shirt for the interview, he appears collected, almost quiet, even. But it’s clear that what’s coming is anything but.
&FRIENDS Festival is positioning itself as a landmark for how music, gaming, internet culture, and community in Southeast Asia can collide. Organized by Banusing’s Clout Kitchen team, the festival blends the chaotic energy of raves with the digital language of Gen Z culture. For him, the festival is building a new kind of space that reflects how people actually engage with music now.
“A lot of other music festivals are just focused solely on the music,” Banusing tells Rolling Stone Philippines. “They’re kind of one-dimensional. If you look at one of our acts, BBNO$, he overlaps with someone like Porter Robinson. He’s a gamer, a creator, and he’s also known for the memes as well.”
The design of &FRIENDS leans into the way fandoms and communities exist now: fragmented, online, and deeply engaged either in EDM or cosplay culture. Banusing says short-form platforms shaped a lot of the thinking behind the programming. “TikTok, Facebook Reels, Meta Reels, and YouTube Shorts have actually been a big part of our lives because of the way the algorithm works,” he says. “When we see the algorithm suggests others [creators], and therefore the intersection exists. I really think that it’s just another way for fans to connect with the artists that they’re passionate about.”
mORE THAN JUST YOUR TYPICAL FESTIVAL
In shaping &FRIENDS, Banusing isn’t just building a new festival format. He’s betting on the idea that today’s fans want more than EDM. They want context, connection, and a reflection of the world they actually live in. The festival is rooted in what people actually experience, according to Banusing. “It’s kind of a natural progression where a lot of these people who grew up on the internet culture would also like to go to raves to hear the music they grew up with,” he says. “Like if you go to raves in the U.S. right now, they’re actually nerds too.”
It’s also a reaction to what the traditional festival circuit has offered up to this point. For Banusing, the goal is broadening the scale and managing to exceed expectations. “We want to be able to hopefully instill a feeling in people that it’s not jus a one-time Zedd concert where they’re gonna hear “Clarity” or “Stay the Night” a bunch of times and go home, right?,” he says. “We want them to actually say, hey, we want to go further down the spectrum.” In the upcoming &FRIENDS Festival, there are activities that go beyond music.
There are panels discussions on the state of the gaming industry, while there are fan meetups of creators on the other side. The chaotic mix of genres, references, and subcultures isn’t accidental. It’s a core part of the atmosphere. “Part of the magic is in the chaos, right? So it’s like you seeing the internet come to life, and all your favorite people in one place is part of the magic.”