Festival Review: Flow Fest 2018
Nothing beats the feeling of anticipation as you drive down the beautiful Red Road from Pahoa to Green Lake. The ocean on your left, crashing upon the lava rock. Trees of all varieties arching above your head … and then you miss the turn. Pulling in, coconut trees line the drive and at the end of the path you’re greeted by a man named Naked Wesley. He directs you where to park and then you join the line of barefoot, smiling hippies waiting for their wrist bands. You’re at Flow Festival.
With a growing reputation, an evolving musical line up, an improved layout and a record number of tickets sold, Flow Festival maintained a sense of intimacy and managed to meet their zero waste goal. Following the Bana Kuma Wisdom Retreat, The 4th Annual Flow Festival was held Feb 2, 3 and 4 on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Headliners included Eoto, Chris Berry, Cas Haley, Yaima, Elijah Ray, Mike Love, Tubby Love, Paul Izak, Amber Lilly, Hawane Rios and many others. The event also offered educational workshops at the Regeneration Stage, a kid friendly environment, local food and crafts, fire spinners and an overall feeling of mutual respect and support.
This was the second year the event was held at its current location of Green Lake. The prior year, being the first, was like a ukulele player picking up a guitar for the first time. The musician has the knowledge of how to keep time, strum and change chords. But, the additional strings and enlarged size presents the challenge to grow. After a little bit of work and extra attention on the little details, the musician and instrument work together to create a beautiful sound. Much like Flow Festival 2018.
In attendance over the weekend was baked goods and hula hoop vendor, Hula. The Hula team consisted of Ashley Lopez, Aster Wells, Peter Patarca and Aaron Lande. The booth’s name refers to the state of a full moon or full fruit but also served as a fun play on words for their hula hoops! Though this wasn’t their first Flow Festival experience, it was their first time bringing their varying hoop sizes, corn fritters, and Cajita Turtle Brownie Cookies.
“My favorite feeling was having regular customers come back. One guy had about eight or nine orders of corn fritters over the weekend. I nicknamed another “Cookie Monster”. He came to us every night with a sweet tooth and the last day pretty much bought us out,” said Ashley Lopez. “I am glad we attended. We were surrounded by so much love and support.”
The most noticeable growth from 2017 to 2018 was the system put in place to sort discarded items. Repurposed pallets were used to create the disposal stations for compost, HI-5 refundable containers, mixed recycling, and landfill waste. The Zero Waste Team stood by to teach festival attendees how to dispose to their items correctly.
“I had the chance to meet a large cross section of the community at the festival, as they came up to our stations to discard their rubbish,” said Zero Waste Team member, Dick West. “It was great to see how enthusiastic the kids were when playing the “sorting game” as they had to figure out which bin to discard their items in.“
The thoroughness did not end there, the team weighed and recorded the amount of trash diverted from the landfill and added food scraps to an onsite composting pile.
“In natural economy, waste does not exist because the entire system thrives on the reuse and recycling of every available resource. If humans wish to continue to be supported by the natural world we are all a part of, we all need to start looking at our patterns of consumption and waste as a part of that natural system,” said West.
Truly wrapping up the entire experience, during his Friday night set, Dustin Thomas shared “There are two rules. One, take care of this island and two, take care of your family. Now, these two rules have two conditions. The “island” refers to the entire planet and everyone is family.”
Photos courtesy of Julie O’Connor, Ashley Lopez and Ingalisa Burns.
