Sand & Strings Music Festival: Supporting Sayulita Through Sustainability Initiatives
By Charlie Higgins
By now you have probably seen posters around town or heard through the grapevine about Sand & Strings Music Festival, which will take place April 5th and 6th at Frente al Punto Beach Club. The first (of hopefully many) edition of this gathering will feature an incredible lineup of Americana, bluegrass, indie folk and blues artists from San Francisco to Mexico City, British Columbia to Nashville, and even Sayulita and the surrounding area. The list of artists is a “who’s who” of this vibrant music scene that is rooted in tradition but firmly situated in the present: The Brothers Comatose, Rayland Baxter, The Mother Hips, The Franklin Electric, Gran Sur, The Sweet Lillies, Dead Horses, Handmade Moments, Benjamin Dakota Rogers, Sisters, Willy Tea Taylor and Vera Pedro, just to name a few.
As this highly anticipated concert weekend approaches, I’ve made it my mission as the main festival organizer to help ensure a bright future for both Sand & Strings and for the Sayulita community and beyond. This means adhering to sustainable practices from day one in order to minimize the kind of waste that events of this size tend to generate. It requires a bit of additional forethought and organization but is essential to the festival’s values of family, community and shared experience.
The first initiative we’ve taken towards giving Sand & Strings Music Festival an ecological focus is partnering with Circular, an organization based in Guadalajara that provides festivals and other large gatherings with high quality, eco-friendly cups that are distributed, collected and reused at future events. Circular’s system reduces the average per-person use ratio from approximately five disposable cups to only one reusable cup, all of which are free of BPA and other toxic chemicals. Once these cups can no longer be used, they are recycled by Circular to be reincorporated into brand new cups or other sustainable products. This practice effectively reduces the amount of plastic waste at a festival by up to 80%.
We have also recently partnered with and will donate part of the festival’s proceeds to Azul Sayu, A.C., Sayulita’s stellar environmental conservation organization over five years in the making. This registered non-profit provides free recycling services to the community, having installed over 100 bins around Sayulita and San Ignacio, where recycled items are collected and later sorted effectively. Azul Sayu has also set up two public drop off points, runs educational workshops at its sorting facility and works closely with bars, restaurants, developments, schools, parks and homes to ensure responsible recycling practices, among other important work. The program is primarily funded by donations from members of the community and local business sponsors.
In addition, we are asking all of our local food vendors to focus on “finger foods”, eliminating or at least reducing the need for plates and cutlery, which generate unnecessary waste. We want everyone to enjoy the incredible green space, tropical vegetation, wildlife and stunning beachfront at Frente al Punto, as well as the surrounding area, while maintaining its pristine natural beauty through conscious collaboration. Tickets for Sand & Strings Music Festival are currently on sale at www.sandandstringsfest.com
Kids 8 years old and under enter free.
