Evolve keeps evolving
Nelson summer festival Evolve is moving to reusable cups, plates and cutlery for hire during the three day event.
It’s the eighth year Bex and Chai Deva have organised the sustainable living festival, beginning tonight, at Founders Heritage Park.The event includes workshops on health and wellbeing as well as health practitioners, music and food.
Bex said over the past seven years vendors had only used compostable or glass packaging, but this year they were taking it a step further by putting the focus on reusing, instead of recycling or composting.
‘‘We were one of the Nelson’s pioneering events for zero waste and this year we’re taking it to another level.’’
They would be providing reusable plates, cutlery, coffee cups and cold drink cups for the attendees to hire.
There would be reusable cups from Globelet for a $2 deposit and coffee cups from Motueka’s Ideal Cups are $5 for hire or $12 to buy the cup including a free coffee.
Plates and cutlery options would be provided by Bex and Chai, or people could bring their own reusable items.
A wash station would be set up between the two old phone boxes at the park, to provide a place for people to wash their food and drinks items to reuse. Any compostable plastics would be collected by Community Compost.
Bex said it was difficult to estimate how many disposable items they would save from landfill, but she reckoned more than 1500 cups for cold drinks and ‘‘at least 500 coffee cups and many plates’’.
Also new this year was the fact people needed to buy additional tickets to do workshops, in addition to their general admission ticket.
Bex said the reason for the change was that they realised there were people who only wanted to listen to the music and check out the exhibitors, but not do any workshops.
The music line up consisted of many national and international acts, including Maori musician Matiu Te Huki - who performed with Fat Freddies Drop and Tiki Taane - as well as Dutch/New Zealand trio My Baby, who play hypnotic dance music.
There will be 100 exhibitors, more than 60 workshops and seminars, varying from stand up paddle board yoga to psychic surgery with TV3’s Jeanette Wilson.
They were hoping the weather this year would be better than last year, when the festival got washed out when a big storm rolled through town causing cancellations and damage.
Bex said it was the support they received from the community in the aftermath, both financially as well as mentally, that meant they didn’t give up.
‘‘We realised how much it meant to other people.
‘‘And on a practical level as well feeling that support and being able to continue.’’
She said they didn’t have the funds to take out weather insurance on the festival, noting a quote they received of $5000 for the three day festival with another $5000 for excess.
‘‘We’re keeping a closer eye on the weather and looking into ways to make it more weather proof.
‘‘Last year it was more the winds that got us more than the rain, or the combination.’’
Bex said she had been nervous in last couple of weeks with all the rain that the new year had brought with it.
But the weather forecast for the festival weekend was looking good and excitement was taking over.
Bex said the until now annual event would be turned into a biennial festival after this edition, to allow for more time to organise it.
‘‘We also made a reassessment for us as a family, we’ve got growing kids who we would like to spend more time with. There’s only two of us, and we juggle other businesses as well.’’
Bex said she hoped by having the event once every two years it would allow them more time to apply for funding and get more people on board to help organise it.
‘‘It’s going to be awesome. I’m also looking forward to having a year off next year.’’
Evolve Festival, Founders Park, tonight 7pm to January 28, 6pm. Tickets from $20, available via evolvefestival.co.nz.