In about six months’ time Botanico Craft Beer Garden will celebrate ten years of presenting live bands. The grand opening in May 2016 featured the power trio Road to Mandalay in a performance that set the music curfew at 9.30 pm in perpetuity. These days the acts are a little more sedate, but the commitment to live music has remained strong through changes of management and ownership. What has also continued to develop is the mixture of indoor and outdoor, the leafy garden atmosphere that even boasts a fish pond. LengPleng sat down with the owner Marco Gunther to discuss the current schedule and atmosphere.
“For me it’s very important that the music has to match the vibe,” says Marco. “People have to be able to talk and chat, so it’s not a concert, but a bit more than background music. At the same time it’s important that we have a variety of different types of music, so we’re trying to avoid the same old names all the time. For example, I make sure that we have at least one jazz night per month, and we never have the same act twice in a month, except for Sundays, where we have a bit of a different format.
“On Sundays we have two musicians for a two month period, on alternating weeks. This month it’s John Peter and Adam Marsland, in December it will be Pablo and James. There’s always new talent coming in, sometimes they stay, sometimes they’re travelling – I like to give them a chance as well.”
Botanico is striving to balance consistency with variety. “People know this is a venue that they can come to every Friday, Saturday, Sunday – even without knowing who’s playing they can expect something good. The new Hoppy Sundays are working well – we start the music earlier, around 5.30 pm, and then we pair it with some promotion, a craft beer discount, or cocktails, or a barbecue pop-up. It’s nice to collaborate with friends. It will take some time to build up, but it’s the right time to get it started as high season comes in.”
Besides adding Sundays Botanico have also transformed two garden huts, previously used as offices, into booth seating. “It adds more seating, and it’s a more comfortable and private space. We have been trying to get more Cambodians to come, and that seems to be happening now, without us having to move too far from our original concept. It’s still a community place, with western music and mainly western food, but Cambodians seem to have a growing interest in this.”
This weekend at Botanico find Cardboard Lo-Fi on Friday, Miss Sarawan on Saturday, and Adam Marsland on Sunday.
