The Festival was the brainchild of four people, originally Randy Raine-Reusch, a world music instrumentalist from Canada (with a band named ASZA), another fellow Canadian based in Kuching, Robert Basuik (at that time the Marketing head of the Sarawak Tourism Board) and two brothers fronting the Society Atelier of Sarawak, Edric Ong, an architect/designer by profession and brother Edgar Ong, a former journalist and current film-maker.

The festival, which is held in the Sarawak Cultural Village, runs workshops, ethno-musical lectures, jamming sessions and mini concerts in the afternoon followed by evening performances held on the two main stages in the village. In the 2007 festival 20 bands performed for an 8000-strong audience.

While there are timetables for the workshops and evening performances, visitors are not required to keep to them as they are free to enter and leave any event at will. The daytime workshops are held inside various traditional houses in the village, where the performers or leaders of the events may even be on the same floor as the visitors, allowing them to get up close to the performers.

The Rainforest World Music Festival is an annual 3-day music festival celebrating the diversity of "world music" formerly known as ethnic music held in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, that consists of cultural and musical workshop-oriented daytime events and the more concert-like music performances during the night.

There are also no restrictions in communicating with the performers and musicians, and the musicians themselves sometimes encourage conversation, especially if it is regarding the topic of the workshop they are running or about the traditional instruments they use.