Making Clockenflap tick

''I like it. But let's make sure that there are no head-ripping-off opportunities. And can we get bubbles coming out of it?" Jay Forster is standing in a patch of West Kowloon scrubland, squinting at an artist's sketched proposal for an installation. It involves a carousel of sorts, powered by bicycles. And he is only partly joking about health and safety concerns - as Hong Kong's biggest annual music and arts festival, which Forster co-founded, looms larger, so do the responsibilities incumbent on its organisers, preventing decapitation among them.

Those who believe that pulling Clockenflap together might be great fun for its tiny team of creatives would only be partly right. Since the first one - staged for 2,000 revellers on the green lawns of Cyberport in 2008 - the festival's creators have faced stress, debt and homelessness. Notably, there was their partial eviction once the festival's noise and popularity levels outgrew the original site, prompting a near-futile hunt for a replacement outdoor space. In 2011, they were taken in by the West Kowloon Cultural District but were not allowed to sell tickets, leading them to hold the event for free and pay for much of the deficit out of their own pockets (including a HK$200,000 bill for trampled shrubbery). And then there was the public backlash the following year, when tickets were once again charged for.

Recognition hasn't always been forthcoming, either. Large-scale buy-in by the Hong Kong population and sponsorship from domestic businesses have been elusive, partly because some see it as a one-dimensional music concert for expats rather than what co-founder Justin Sweeting describes as "a grass-roots festival experience in the more rounded sense of word".

And with things taking place on a much larger scale this year, plenty of new challenges have sprung up. For the first time, the event will span three days, from Friday night to Sunday; the site is a third bigger and the content has swelled to include a curated art village, film and cabaret shows, more food and beverage outlets and over 100 music acts spanning seven stages.

Yet just a few weeks before the first note is played, energy levels and optimism in the Clockenflap office-hive are high, if not intense. Hell, this year there's even a chance of breaking even for the first time. In fact, this is their best year yet, says Sweeting, with conviction.

"Hong Kong has never seen a festival of this scale or scope before - a way of completely escaping the city and becoming immersed in new experiences," he says.