By: Sarah Rojas
The festival industry has expanded its popularity just over the last decade from evolving OG’s like Ultra Music Festival Worldwide to new hype festivals like Astroworld by the artist Travis Scott. With a new entertainment standard of extravagant visual screens, VIP experiences, multiple artists all in one place, and a party utopian playground, the mainstream festival industry has curated an event culture that can live up to the over stimulation the average human is used to being exposed to in their daily lives. I myself have had extensive experience in the festival industry from starting off as an attendee and once self proclaimed “raver” to being a part of festival administration through managing and supervising Box Office at major festivals. I am currently the Volunteer Coordinator for a new wave of event productions that are curated with the intention to invoke spiritual transformation and encourage true authentic connection, and transformational healing. These events open up a space beyond one’s trendy clothes, Instagram photos, and fancy production stages, to redirect that energy into a safe space for one to be able to reconnect with their authentic expression.
Ultra Music festivals used to be my dream! I remember growing up in Jersey and club music was our culture! I blindly found myself aligning my life in a way that created a clear path into the festival world. This path did include many sleepless nights, alcohol and party drugs that did not necessarily seem like a problem at the time, for me and many others;, it was a part of the festival experience. By the time I was seventeen, I had already attended a lot of “underground rave” events that were considered to be “mini festivals”, at that time it gave me a sense of feeling cool, living on the edge, and I kept coming back to thinking that, “this was just like the parties in movies!” I eventually found my way into college in Miami where Ultra Music Festival was taking place and of course I did everything I needed to do, to be in attendance. I prepared outfits for months, spent all my savings, and borrowed money from my parents for alcohol. (Of course they didn’t know this.) Inevitably the moment came to attend Ultra and it was so amazing, I can still feel the excitement! I remember thinking how cool it was that people flew all over the world to listen and dance to these artists & Djs. I remember what it looked like in the videos on youtube, and the parallel of actually being there, in person, in the crowd. This is where things began to shift and new observations were made.
Watching a Festival “Aftermovie” is completely different from actually attending one. In fact it is a great example of how the media can create a curated highlight reel for social media platforms. Just like it has taken our society time to realize that insite, it took me time to realize that the experience and feelings I was seeking based on a video or picture wasn’t exactly what happened in real life when you were there, and it certainly wasn’t something I could just buy a ticket for and my life would be changed forever. I believe this to be true with all festivals, even the conscious events I partake in today. I find it to be a normal observation to make although I will say, there is a difference in how you personally feel when your experience is worse than what the social media advertised vs your personal experience being better that any video can try to portray, if the video just so happens to capture some of that magic, cool, but the real was so personally impactful that the video doesn’t matter. Now this is where true impact becomes your marketing.
I currently work with an epic conscious ceremonial festival called Fire Flies Forest. This production was created in the midst of a global pandemic by ex-burners who have a passion for bringing their community together in prayer, dance, meditation and ceremony of life and our earth. I myself started out as an art volunteer assisting with macrame for the event décor. I learned quickly from this ex-burner community about the self ethics you must align yourself with to be a good community member and leader in the tribe. Selfless service being one of them, I volunteered myself to lead in event sanitation and land tending, we called it Green Team. Soon after that I grew into being the volunteer coordinator for the whole event as we grew from a 10 acre property to a 30 acre property. This was a challenge and a task I couldn’t have achieved or done properly without the help of other team members sharing their knowledge with me. And that is the lesson of this all, is that building a flashy event is easy, but creating an event that is impactful beyond just a weekend is the real work and it is impossible to achieve without true community building and learning how to be a leader, not a follower on how you should run your organization in a way that aligns with your mission.
Our mission at Fire Flies Forest is to celebrate life, our ancestors, and pave a way for transformational healing to take place with the collaboration and support of our community.
Fireflies Forest started 2 years ago, and through organic true authentic impact we have grown an audience of over 10,000 people. Fireflies has created the exact opposite of the overstimulated festival culture that is all the hype right now. Instead they have focused on true impact, this means we have implemented standards that are almost unheard of in the event industry. Fire Flies Forest is a Non-Alcoholic event. We encourage families in attendance, and even practices silent hours where artist or djs are not playing on any stages, this allows for people to actually interact with one another without distractions or stimulants so that people can form real relationships with others, others read, take time to rest, or attend a informational workshop to expand or nourish their MBS. I am grateful to have found such an organization that is a trailblazer for nonalcoholic transformational festivals. I truly believe this is the blueprint for a new wave of festivals that will become favored in high demand.
About the Author:
Sarah Rojas is “an advocate for thriving resilience, a ceremonial space holder and facilitator, spirit writer, meditation guide, and subconscious mind re-programmer.” Currently helping to facilitate various festivals and workshops, she is volunteer coordinator for Fire Flies Forest Event Series.
