WHAT: Envision Festival, a so-called transformational festival. Think of Burning Man but than smaller, more focus on yoga, totally ecological and tucked between the sea and jungle. WHERE: Rancho la Merced, Costa Rica, between Uvita and Dominical, Costa Rica. It’s a three-hour drive from San José HOW MUCH: $333,- for the entrance to the entire festival, this doesn’t include food or drinks, nor a place to sleep HOW LONG: 4 days in February, dates for 2018 yet to be confirmed
This year I went for the first time to Envision Festival and I can tell you from my own experience it was quite unlike any other festival. Envision was found in 2011 with just 500 attendees on a small piece of land near Dominical. But that amount grew steadily and this year the festival had somewhat 5000 visitors. Or participators I should say, since you don’t just go to Envision for listening to some music. No, you really kind of have to indulge yourself to everything that evolves around you to become part of the event.
The festival area is nestled along the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica. So you’re basically dancing beneath the parrots high up in the jungle canopy . The staff works hard to remain the area as natural as possible. That’s why there are some ecological demands while entering the zone. To begin with: there’s no plastic of any form within the festival grounds. People are encouraged to bring their own reusable plates and cups, with totally adds up to the camping feeling felt all around the area. Everyone is washing their dishes in between all of the action.
Also, all the food and drinks that are sold at the foodtrucks are organic and locally made. Apart from that, the entire day is filled with workshops and talks that cover topics like permaculture, plant healing, ecological solutions and spiritual empowerment. If you’re more into sweating it out (although just walking around in the heath of the day may cause already enough of that), you can participate in yoga sessions, hula hooping, indigenous dances or other intense workouts. Or you can stick a surfboard under your arm and run towards the sea for a dive.
So it probably becomes kinda clear that this festival is all about finding the inner spirit. But don’t forget, there’s also a program full of performance artists, and the four stages loosely break down into different genres. Fire dancers, hula hoopers, belly dancers and so on are accompanying DJs. At some points you really don’t know where you have to look first. That is partially too due to the stages that are being built in a different and totally mesmerizing creative way, with stunning visual effects. The staff, designers and volunteers are preparing the area for months and it clearly shows off.
The people that are attracted by the festival make up a nice mix of backpackers, surfers, music lovers, yogis and Costa Rican locals. Most of the expats come from the northern American hemisphere. Europeans are yet far less represented. I think it was particularly fun walking around, because all the performers (famous or not) were part of the crowd themselves too, in a tranquilo way. For me it was crazy when I bumped just casually into the guys of Goldfish, a South African dj duo that I saw some eight years ago together with thousands of their fans. No way they could just have been able to walk around the arena by then.
After days of dancing, swimming, chilling in hammocks, ecological workshops and most of all meeting people, I had the feeling I was about the leave one of the most generous places I’d ever been behind. Quite a superb experience.
Here are some of the pictures I made of the festival to give you an idea of what was going on, enjoy!
