Peak experiences are great, but it’s everything in between those moments that have created the best festivals.

Envision Festival understands the level of intimacy required for great moments to happen. Here’s how they exude excellence in the details.

Peak moments: the perfect sunrise set, elevated sunsets, a breathtaking unicorn grabbing your hand, grand adventures, dancing on stage. These are the memories that often stick with us long after the music fades. But without the in between moments, we would not have the foundation for those perfect slices of life.

The chorus of cicadas at day break, sloths on electric wires, mirrored sunsets in the salty tides. Costa Rica’s Envision Festival carries the magic and beauty of life in every moment – an event that appreciates and highlights that it’s the small things in life that can bring the most joy.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

George Eliot

The Music

The main stage acts are phenomenal – as always (C’mon, Trevor Hall and GRiZ in the jungle? Yes, please) – but the headliners are the headliners and after enough festivals, the large main stages all start to blur together.

Still, the music was on point and featured an eclectic mix of local talent such as La Chiva Gantina, to electronic and live band superstars such as Nicola Cruz (who, in this editor’s humble opinion had one of the best sets of the week), Gone Gone Beyond, and Too Many Zooz.

The side stages, however, are where things start getting interesting. Intricate woodwork sourced from local fallen trees; elegant, hand-planted succulents growing from every nook and cranny; local and live artists filling the space with their creativity, onlookers lending their energy to the artists on stage – it’s eye candy and people watching and radical inclusion in the most organic way. And it all stems from the details and attention on the small things that keep your focus in the experience.

The Connection

If one pays close enough attention, what’s very clear is that Envision facilitates connection on a granular level: connection to yourself, to others, and to the planet.

It’s evident in the way workshops are set up and run, intimate jaunts meant to forward ways of thinking and being. You can see it in the way festival attendees hug each other.

Wander deep in the campground and you might find Envision’s sacred Temple space to take a pause from the action and drop into the energy building at the festival. You might even find spend some time at the Eternal Fire that surrounds the Temple or create new connections in the dedicated spaces for Men’s and Women’s circles.

The connection to this planet is evident in the reusable plastic cups for rent – keeping waste to a minimum – the parade to plant trees, the ocean cleanups, and the honor of winning the Greenest Festival Award in 2018. And perhaps most importantly is the stand Envision takes with it’s connection to the local community and with Costa Rica, involving the inhabitants of Uvita in being a part of the operations and cleanups so they, too, can experience the magic of the festival instead of observing from afar as bystanders.

The Spaces

At Envision, even the bars boast an added element of surprise and delight. Head to the Herbal Elixir Bar – offering non-alcoholic, organic, traditionally inspired herbal cocktails made from local Costa Rican and other ethically sourced organic ingredients from North America – and you’ll find a mixture of drinks, tonics, and tinctures to cure any festival ache or pain.

Start the day with a Hydration Mertini (spelled correctly), complete with chlorophyll, to stay quenched through the heat of the day so you can come back at night for a Shake Your Koolata to dance the night away – after all, there are a lot of in between moments between sunrise and sunset.

The People

At festivals, as in life, don’t forget to keep your eyes up – you never know who you’ll bump into meandering the well-worn jungle paths …

At every twist and turn a hug is available. Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet, and the Envision jungle is full of happy faces waiting to connect. Talent runs amock, and if you are looking for it, a dance, a conversation, or acro yoga is just a friendly “Wanna fly?!” away.

The context Envision holds for the humans (and aliens) who take part is one of compassion, integrity, and curiosity. A meeting and mingling of global cultures and ideas. It’s where sustainability meets jugglers meets all night dance parties meets Men’s Circles.

Our lives are not like Instagram posts – stuff happens in between the peaks – and often it’s these interloping moments that build the mountain tops we hold dearest.

As Eamon Armstrong so eloquently stated on his panel, The Future Of Festivals, “Only King Hanuman, the king of the monkeys, can leap from mountain top to mountain top. The rest of us have to go down into the valleys before rising again.”

Enjoy and celebrate your peaks and valleys. Envision is a time and place that teaches us to appreciate the small moments in life. After all, from the tiniest seeds grow the largest oaks – so here’s to the moments in between, the moments that we build our memories on.

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