In the world of bass embracing music festivals and transformational culture few can speak to the potential of what we’re building quite like Jeet- Kei Leung, the creator of the Bloom Series. In the above TEDx Talk that he gave in Vancouver about 5 years ago, he explains the emergence and evolution of festival communities and the impact these events are making in our world. Since around a half a decade has passed since his compelling and thought provoking talk we caught up with Jeet-Kei to ask about the current state of the festival community so that we can learn what to expect in the year ahead.

Image Credit: Kris Krug

Here’s what he had to say:

“I think there will be some break-throughs among the initiatives going on right now by festival-based collectives (or communities) to purchase land for the purpose of becoming permanent venues.

As this milestone is achieved, we’re going to get some really interesting things happening—as communities forged through years of festival production get to take that inventive, artistic ethos and create remarkable permanent environments tailored to the cutting-edge interests of festival culture.

Within these, I would keep your eye on those coming from the ‘transformational festival’ milieu—Mainly because they usually have a strong socially-conscious drive and they will be the ones who leverage the opportunity to combine the power of the festival experience with more far-reaching experiments in regenerative culture.

Expect to see things like eco-villages, permaculture gardens, organic farms, various forms of invention/maker labs, and artist studios and residencies. You would of course see major art and stage installations and building projects, and the start of development of facilities for year-round programming.

As festival-based communities take these on, we’ll really see the challenges and the power of taking these big steps together. Stewardship of these ambitious endeavours will drive a whole next level of collaboration.

You get much more into governance and other aspects of running a shared community enterprise on an ongoing basis. But, overall as festival communities reach and influence so many people today, I think the conversation will really start to deepen as we get to experiment and establish models that can have impact in helping to evolve the way we live on the planet.”

What do you think 2016 will hold for the festival community? Tell us in the comments below!