NEON Projects Turned a Malaysian Passion Project Into Two of Asia's Top 100 Dance Festivals
Neon Countdown in Bangkok and Sunset By Neon in Genting Highlands both made DJ Mag's Top 100 Festivals for 2026. Both are run by the same small company out of Malaysia.
Two names on DJ Mag's Top 100 Festivals list for 2026 share an owner. Neon Countdown, Thailand's New Year's Eve mainstay, lands at 78. Sunset By Neon, in the Genting Highlands, sits at 89. Both are run out of the same small company in Malaysia, called NEON Projects.
From a Local New Year's Party to Bangkok's Biggest Stage
NEON Projects launched Neon Countdown in Malaysia in 2015, what its chief executive, Yogeshwara Rao, has described less as a business plan than a passion project. The turn came when the festival crossed into Thailand, which Malay Mail reported opened the team's eyes to the potential of catering to an international audience through EDM. Neon Countdown is now one of Thailand's biggest New Year's Eve dance festivals. Its 10th-anniversary edition closed out 2025 at Rajamangala National Stadium with a lineup that included W&W, Timmy Trumpet and Nicky Romero.
That run of work put Neon Countdown at 53rd on DJ Mag's 2025 festival ranking. This year it dropped 25 spots to 78th. DJ Mag's Top 100 is a fan vote, not a permanent credential, and the field above Neon Countdown gets more crowded every year; a double-digit slide is the cost of staying in a list that resets annually, not evidence the festival itself got smaller.
Genting Highlands Gets Its First Techno Festival
Sunset By Neon is younger and, on paper, a bigger gamble: Malaysia's first festival built entirely around techno, launched in May 2024 at Genting Highlands Premium Outlet with Boris Brejcha and Argy headlining. It dropped four places to 89th on DJ Mag's 2026 festival list.
The clearest sign the format is working came on June 20, when Sunset By Neon hosted the Asian debut of Upperground, the touring festival brand built around ARTBAT. The Ukrainian duo brought their own production team: fireworks, a drone show, a stage built for the atmosphere of a major Ibiza night rather than a regional EDM bill. "This is ARTBAT's intellectual property. They control everything, from the front-of-house production to the technical aspects. We are there to support and make it happen," Yogeshwara told Malay Mail. Three months later, Sunset By Neon brought Enrico Sangiuliano to Genting Highlands for his own Malaysia debut.
Competing Without Tomorrowland's Leverage
What Yogeshwara describes as the hardest part of the job has nothing to do with staging. International festival brands increasingly lock touring DJs into regional exclusivity clauses. "Because festivals like Tomorrowland or EDC, they don't just book the DJ, but they also include a regional clause where if the DJ is performing in Thailand, they can't perform anywhere else in the region," he told Malay Mail. A small independent promoter chasing the same names, while keeping tickets within reach of a Malaysian or Thai audience, has fewer ways to win that fight than scale. "We are a small company going toe-to-toe with global giants. It's a battle of dollars and cents, and we have to fight for our piece of the market," he told Malay Mail.
NEON Projects' answer has been to pull fans toward its venues instead of chasing every headliner. NEON Projects has used that international audience to expand into markets including China, Japan and Qatar. It has also opened a presence in markets including Japan, China and Qatar.
Whether that bet holds will show up in next year's DJ Mag numbers, the only outside scoreboard either festival has. For a company that started as a passion project, two entries on a global Top 100 list, slipping or not, remain a notable achievement.
Cover photo: Sunset By Neon: Upperground, Genting Highlands, June 20, 2026. Picture courtesy of NEON Projects.
