Dear fellow Visionaries,
We hope you’ll take the time to pause for the long read about our journey. We have listened and we have put changes into action. We are now ready to share how we are evolving and how we will deliver a better experience.
Our goals and work for the last year have been:
• Raise our standards for protecting public health
• Improve our hospitality experience for guests and our team
• Strengthen our Costa Rica relationships
• Let our actions guide our words
We care about our place and our impact, our guests, staff and the local community. In the past, our words went further than our actions. We tried to do too much all at once. For the last year, we have focused on what is essential to move forward and what has to change. We are participating in discussions of how we balance all of the competing interests, and how we serve our community.
Self-accountability and accountability to our community and our guests is essential. Earlier this year, we promised to change. Today we share our progress, demonstrating our renewed commitment to raise our standards of communication and integration.
Welcome to the jungle, it’s bursting with life. You are vital to our shared ecosystem. Join us as we go Back to Our Roots.
Envision exists to inspire people to be the best version of themselves in nature, and to harness that change to make the world a better place. We are a beautiful, imperfect disturbance, aiming to start the butterfly effect. We seek to be a beacon of hope and a catalyst to unlock the highest potential in those who join us, and for those people to inspire others.
The word “festival” does not accurately describe us, it is shorthand. We are an example and an experiment that is growing, evolving and learning. Envision requires contemplation, attention, participation and passion. Although we are not perfect, we are committed to striving to have a better impact on our Visionaries, our community and our environment. We celebrate and acknowledge that we are all visionaries capable of shaping our future together. Creating our moment of inspirational jungle life is radically complex, and we work hard to simplify how we can share it with international and local audiences.
Producing Envision is a huge task–whatever you think it takes, it’s exponentially more. Every year we seek to improve our team to create the best experience possible. Our current team benefits from everything done by those who have contributed in prior years. For years, this festival has happened thanks to the blood, sweat and tears of many hard-working people, their work. Many have gone well beyond the call of duty and we are grateful for their contributions. As a group, everyone who has worked on our show as staff, performer or volunteer is a part of Envision and will be forever.
When we dare to inspire people and to change the world for the better, we take a risk. We succeed at times, and other times we fall short. Our work is critical and requires us to keep trying. We believe that Envision’s impact on the world is more important now than it has ever been.
Envision Festival is located in the Southern Pacific Coastal Region of Costa Rica, commonly known as Costa Ballena — where the Pacific Ocean meets the foothills of the Cordillera de Talamanca Mountains. This confluence of ocean and mountains forms part of the greater Osa region, recognized globally as one of the most biodiverse areas on Earth.
Our festival site at Rancho La Merced lives just 1.5 kilometers north of Marino Ballena National Park, a protected marine sanctuary home to humpback whales, spotted and bottlenose dolphins, manta rays, parrotfish, and mackerel. The park’s coastline and coral reefs are vital to Costa Rica’s marine ecology and represent the heart of the Southern Zone’s conservation network.
Rancho La Merced is uniquely positioned within this ecological mosaic. The property’s ecosystem includes emerging mangrove forests, creeks, and freshwater canals, surrounded by countless species of trees, plants, birds, and wildlife. This exceptional setting makes Rancho La Merced unlike any other festival site in the world — not only a place of celebration but also a living example of coexistence with one of the planet’s richest biodiversity corridors. The beach itself is a natural extension of the Envision experience, accessible by a short walk through the jungle.
Envision occurs in an ecologically important area. This area is both our focus for conservation and it also hosts our festival. Together with the owners of the property, our reforestation efforts are why it is closer to its origins than when we arrived. Our tree-planting efforts have added groves of beach almond trees and other species, attracting wildlife back to the area, including Scarlet Macaw, which inspired our logo. Our efforts continue beyond our festival’s boundaries. As far as we know, we are the only festival in the world to have the privilege of existing in a space like this.
Envision serves as a gateway for discovery to this special environment. We invite people to Rancho La Merced to spark passions for conservation and nature for many of our guests. We also recognize Envision has an impact on our host community, our site and the creatures who also call this space home.
We acknowledge that there is an impact of additional humans, as well as sound, lighting and traffic impacts during Envision. We carefully weigh this impact with the benefits of returning a cattle pasture back to the jungle through reforestation, our efforts in conservation (monkey bridges, biological corridors, beach cleanups & more) and the unquantifiable impact of inspiring guests and collaborators who bring their memories and Envision values into their lives. Many of our guests go home with a newfound love for Costa Rica’s jungles and others have moved to the area and become a permanent part of Uvita.
We always consider how to have a more positive impact on the people and planet, as most simply stated by the Buddhist path of righteous living: good for me, good for you and good for everything the world touches. We have and will make mistakes, but we stand by our dedication to a more positive impact.
Envision is unique because of our boutique size, 7-day immersive jungle experience, world-class music, performers and mixture of wellness, movement and other personal growth programming. Balancing the budget is a challenge, if not impossible as many unexpected challenges arise along the way.
It is our goal to be understood as something that is more than a music festival, but to become a premier experience, retreat, mastermind gathering and celebration of life. Our ticket prices result from the number we sell and the quantity and quality of education, talent and what our experience includes. We have tickets for locals priced well below our show’s cost to produce per guest. We do our best to make Envision as inclusive as possible and hope that our audience understands all that is included in the experience.
Like many of our friends who are independent festivals, we struggle to survive every single year. We think it’s worth the work because of the positive impact we have seen in our community.
Envision has not been a profitable festival for many years. Over time, Envisions’s owners made a commitment to keep it going. Our losses have eclipsed our profits by millions of dollars. Even with the current prices of passes and accommodations, a significant financial investment has been made by our current co-founder / owner to balance the budget and clear debts related to 2024 and 2025’s postponement.
For 2027 and beyond, we are going to review our offering and our prices --- in order for us to become sustainable, we will need to continue to change and evolve.
Nature is the dominant, untamed force in Costa Rica. Even if everything is happening perfectly at Envision, the power may go out, the internet may fail, a road may close. We do our best to deliver a great experience but at times - outside forces may prevail. The jungle is alive and the location is remote where things break and repairs are a regular part of life. When things break, we find a different way to enjoy the moment.
Part of our magic comes from this place and the profound feeling of being alive in this natural environment. It feels right to be a human being here. We believe that the inherent challenges of producing and attending Envision here pale in comparison to the magic of our shared experience – whether it is seeing monkeys overhead or swimming at dawn in the warm Pacific Ocean. It is all worth it to coexist in the most biologically diverse place on the planet. If you’re expecting a completely human-controlled environment, Envision may not be for you.
Envision’s survival depends on us and on you. We believe our mission is more important than ever, and we need support. While it may not look different from the outside, Envision’s survival has required significant amounts of capital to survive. Millions. Are you interested in helping us get better and thrive? Envision welcomes incoming emails from possible benefactors who see our mission and want to help us continue to achieve it.
We are learning what the “right” size of Envision is. Growth helped subsidize our festival and it also created lessons, some of which we learned the hard way. In 2024, the size of the on-site population reduced the quality of our shared experience. For 2026, Envision decided to reduce our capacity significantly and will only welcome 5,500 guests. We are reducing our total on-site capacity by 2,000 people from 2024 AND increasing key infrastructure.
As the jungle is rich with life, it is also rich with flora and fauna. You might see a rare Blue Morpho butterfly, your blood might also feed a needy local insect population. While we highlight the beauty of the beach and the jungle in our social posts, the reality comes along with high humidity, moments of sweltering tropical heat, sweat, joy, thirst, insects and more. We share more in common with Burning Man than we do the relative ease and comfort of a day at Coachella’s lovely polo fields. What does this all mean? Parts of your experience may push you beyond your customary practices.
Health and safety is our top priority. We have audited and are addressing issues that are within our control. Our research has revealed multiple triggers for why people had gastrointestinal issues in 2024 and what we can do to prevent them going forwards. Many people got sick from viruses that were brought into the festival by travelers coming to the festival. For many people, moving into the jungle environment of Costa Rica and being exposed to different microbes is enough to trigger GI issues.
Before our 2026 festival, we will provide a comprehensive guide to staying healthy while visiting Costa Rica and Envision. We are developing this with local doctors, health professionals, the Ministry de Salud (Ministry of Health) and referring to other guidelines as well. This guide will include what each of our guests and staff can do to contribute to our overall community health.
Community health is a team effort. Envision cannot control everything. We have worked with skilled teams on our festivals over the years and we will continue to do so. Each year we refine our operations. We commit to communicating health issues in advance and in real-time to best help our population stay healthy.
For 2026, we are welcoming new expertise to the team and building off prior years’ experience. We will also welcome back experienced veterans.
We are pleased to share that our Medical Director is a Costa Rican doctor who works with international film and TV productions in Costa Rica to keep their communities healthy and is part of a bigger team that services large-scale events in the US. He will work alongside a local medical team as well, in partnership with a local clinic, hospital and Ministry of Health. He also trains Costa Rica’s lifeguards, and he will serve as a key bridge to hiring more locals for our own lifeguard team.
While hosting thousands of guests, our water usage impacts the town of Uvita and its residents. We work closely with local community partners and we have been meeting with ASADA (the organization responsible for managing water supply locally) as well as developing a plan with the leading team in Costa Rica specializing in clean water systems. Together, we are designing and building a new on-site water system that guarantees sufficient and clean water while balancing and reducing our impact on the water flow in town. Designed by qualified and experienced engineers, this system will include filters, pumps, treatment, storage tanks and water distribution infrastructure.
We are also separating stations for refilling and handwashing stations. We ask our community to respect these boundaries in the interest of our shared public health.
At Envision 2026, we introduce Templos de Agua (Water), our dedicated water bottle refill stations celebrate the guiding principle: Water is Life. Protecting our water is also a community responsibility. We ask every Visionary to do their part by being mindful of their water use and respectful of Costa Rica’s beautiful waters.
To reduce our impact, Envision is implementing several key initiatives:
We ask every guest and team member to do their part by being mindful of their water use and respectful of the beautiful waters of Costa Rica.
We’re debuting a key standard – we call it our B2S ratio – short for ‘butts to seats’ as our metric for determining the number of bathrooms with the guidance of experienced professionals. We are increasing our B2S ratio by at least 40% – what’s that mean? More bathrooms, more frequent pumping and improved placement.
In 2024, Envision made an investment toward a waterless, off-grid sanitation model using dry-composting toilets (Ecozoics). Our first large-scale use of these toilets in 2024 was step toward sustainability but revealed several areas for improvement. To address the issues, we are implementing the following actions:
Post-event, waste from ecozoic systems will be sealed and transferred to a long-term curing area where it will compost for 12–18 months, ensuring full pathogen elimination before it is used for off-site organic fertilizer. Through collaboration with the Ecozoic Resources team, Envision is refining the system design, maintenance procedures, and user experience to reach a higher level of environmental performance and sanitation reliability.
We are excited to share that we are contracting more Costa Rican teams and companies this year and reducing our environmental impact by minimizing travel from international team members. We don’t have the exact statistics yet, but we set sail with a clear intention to change our practice and we are doing so. We want the jobs we create and the money Envision spends to stay local as much as possible.
When Envision first started, it was a small gathering. As our show grew, we needed expertise that came from international staff. It was necessary at the time, but also made our festival production costs higher and increased our environmental impact with flights and travel. This year, we have built a team of locals to help us produce Envision. We are excited to continue to deliver an international caliber show delivered by a team that is increasingly a higher percentage of Costa Ricans.
Envision attracts thousands of international and national visitors who bring meaningful economic benefits to the local tourism economy. Our festival brings the most international tourists to the country, before, during and after the show. This tourist spending flows into hotels, restaurants, transportation providers, and tour operators across Uvita, Dominical, Ojochal, and other surrounding communities, all the way to San Jose.
To deepen our connection with the surrounding area, Envision offers an expansive tourism program, featuring adventures and hikes exploring the incredible natural and cultural offerings of the area. Our partners, locally owned and operated tour providers, offer waterfall hikes, surf lessons, snorkel tours, paragliding, horseback riding, rafting, waterfall rappelling, surf lessons, wildlife sanctuary visits and botanical tours.
While our Excursion program already contributes positively to local tourism, we know there is always room to do better. Moving forward, Envision aims to:
We understand that there are community benefits to tourism as well as an impact that accompanies tourism. We are prepared and willing to participate in the dialogue with the community about how to best manage this challenge. We recognize it is complex and different minds can see this in different ways. We respect everyone’s passion for what is the right approach.
Starting in late 2025, Envision will hold open community meetings to become more engaged with our local stakeholders. Click here to sign up.
In Costa Rica, all beaches are public and protected under national environmental law. They form a vital part of the country’s coastal ecosystem, safeguarded by local environment agencies. The beach is a pinnacle experience of the festival and is a very short walk from our festival grounds. We gather to celebrate the sunset together every night of the festival. Our event dates are chosen so that low tide coincides with sunset, ensuring both safety and access for guests. For safety reasons, the beach is closed from sunset to sunrise, and during high tide, the ocean often reaches the tree line, leaving little dry space and potential driftwood hazards.
The beach is outside Envision’s event perimeter, it is a public space, not part of our enclosed festival grounds. Local governing agencies manage this space. We do not control the beach. Vendors may appear along the path to the beach and we do not have any control over them. Guests are asked to treat the beach with respect and honor the culture and community that hosts the festival.
Following our festival, Envision will continue to organize beach clean up efforts and reforestation projects to ensure the beach is cleared of trash.
Envision Festival has made reforestation a central part of our environmental mission. What was once open cattle pasture created by clear cutting in the mid-20th century has now begun to return to forest. We have focused our efforts over the years towards planting Ylang Ylang and fruit trees throughout our festival grounds and Rancho La Merced, planting Beach Almonds in the campgrounds for shade. We have also worked with local organizations to plant in the surrounding area to protect water sources and provide biological corridors throughout the property of Rancho La Merced. What was once a cattle pasture is now a food forest and active biological corridor, bringing animals from the mountain jungles to the coast. We are very excited to welcome our 2026 campers as the trees we planted in 2023 have grown to create shade over tent camping areas.
Bamboo is at the heart of Envision Festival’s design approach. This locally sourced, regenerative, and low-impact material allows us to build our incredible stages, onsite accommodations, art installations, furniture, and décor. Bamboo combines strength, flexibility, and natural beauty. It’s also compostable! Most structures have a lifespan of three to five years, allowing Envision to repair, reuse, or compost materials and redesign the site with minimal waste.
We source bamboo from local farms in Costa Rica’s Southern Pacific region, most of which are no more than 20 minutes from Rancho La Merced. Our team harvests, cures, and prepares the bamboo for construction. Envision primarily uses Guadua angustifolia and Dendrocalamus asper. Guadua, known as “vegetal steel,” provides strength for load-bearing structures, while Asper offers long, flexible culms ideal for artistic and curved designs.
After each festival cycle, bamboo structures are maintained, repurposed, or composted onsite at Rancho La Merced.
Envision Festival is taking steps to develop a comprehensive composting program that transforms all organic waste created during the festival into nutrient-rich compost to support our reforestation efforts. While this vision is still being fully implemented, Envision is improving infrastructure, operations, and education to meet this goal.
Our composting system is expanding to include four streams of organic material:
Our goal is for all compost to be processed onsite, with 50% donated to Costas Verdes to support regional reforestation and 50% retained by Envision, Somos El Cambio, and Rancho La Merced for local tree-planting projects.
Through these improvements, Envision is working to replace outdated disposal methods with a closed-loop system that routes nutrients back to the land, enhances soil fertility, and contributes to watershed protection and biological corridor restoration across the Uvita region.
Part of improving the quality of our show is about understanding the layout of the site. We have invested in a LIDAR review of the property. This will allow us to be precise in how we build the show and to respect our environmental boundaries. We are better able to communicate with our guests, our government agency partners, our local partners and everyone in between.
Envision works with local farmers, breweries, and producers to secure locally grown and made fruits, vegetables, poultry, fish, food products, beverages. Local sourcing means our ingredients reflect the abundance of the Southern Zone while reducing transport emissions and supporting local livelihoods.
While we have done our best in the past, we are taking action to do even better by building direct relationships with local suppliers rooted in sustainability and regeneration.
The beverage program celebrates regional craft: kombucha brewed in Uvita, beer crafted in Dominical, cacao sourced from local regenerative farms, and herbal elixirs and mixers made in the Southern Zone using native plants and locally grown herbs.
Even our compostable plates, cups, and containers are manufactured in Costa Rica, closing the loop from production to onsite composting.
At Rancho La Merced, Envision is expanding onsite food and friend production with goats, chickens, pigs, and tropical fruits; integrating nourishment directly into the land that hosts the festival.
We are separating people and vehicles as much as possible. This year, we’ve reimagined our roads, paths and public spaces to be more respectful of the guest experience. In order to distribute ice, clean bathrooms and maintain our site, some vehicles will require access. We will work to limit this to low pedestrian times.
We’re Evolving with Intention, with your guidance.
We’re committed to doing better, learning as we go, and building this gathering with integrity and care.
Got questions? Email our team at info@envisionfestival.com
Queridos compañeros Visionarios,
Es un honor estar en este camino y crecer junto a ustedes. Suelo evitar el protagonismo y prefiero que mis acciones hablen por sí solas. Mi nombre es Josh, soy el fundador de Envision y, desde hace poco, quien lleva la antorcha. Detrás de nuestro festival y su comunicación hay un equipo de seres humanos dando lo mejor de sí para generar un impacto positivo, mientras seguimos aprendiendo en el camino. Ahora, quiero hablar desde el corazón y compartirles mi historia, así como también la dirección a la que se dirige Envision.
Les agradezco de antemano por permitirme ser vulnerable. Cuando reflexiono sobre estos 15 años de dedicación y entrega a Envision, siento una gratitud inmensa por todas las personas que creyeron en este proyecto y le pusieron su alma.
Mike, mi hermano mayor y mejor amigo, me mostró la música de Grateful Dead cuando tenía apenas 13 años. Fue un despertar. En un momento en el que me sentía perdido, encontré refugio en la música. Con el tiempo, me nació la necesidad de encontrar una comunidad con la que pudiera sentir un verdadero sentido de pertenencia, y quería que fuera en la selva, en conexión con la naturaleza. No tenía idea de cómo iba a ser eso, hasta que visité Uvita, hace 22 años.
Dejé mi empresa de comida vegana llamada “The Jungle”, abandoné la escuela de acupuntura y supe que era el momento de vivir la vida que siempre había fomentado.
En Uvita, entendí que había encontrado mi hogar y que el cambio era inevitable. No podía resistirme, ni tenía sentido hacerlo. Sabía que otros iban a sentir el mismo llamado que yo sentí en este paraíso. Quería generar un impacto tangible y ayudar a guiar esa posibilidad de cambio en una dirección positiva.
Desde 2020, enfrenté más desafíos, duelos y oportunidades de crecimiento que en toda mi vida hasta ese momento. Perdimos a Ivan “Oneiro” Céspedes, un legendario DJ costarricense; a Reuben Walker, un líder de Envision; a Maricruz Lizano, un torbellino de alegría en la escena musical de Costa Rica; y a mi hermano lo diagnosticaron con glioblastoma, un tumor cerebral terminal.
El duelo me hizo apreciar lo valiosa que es la vida y lo importante que es no dar nada por sentado. Me pregunto a mí mismo y a los demás qué haríamos en la vida o qué nos diríamos si supiéramos cuán limitado es nuestro tiempo. Aprendí a amar más profundamente, a perdonar sin reservas y a no postergar la vida que quiero vivir.
Ha sido un camino difícil. Navegar la pandemia no fue fácil. Construir una ciudad temporal en medio de la selva de Costa Rica en tiempos inciertos es una gran responsabilidad, llena de desafíos constantes. Envision me llevó más allá de todo lo que creí posible, y estas experiencias me hicieron ser quien soy hoy.
Siento una gratitud inmensa hacia Envision. Lo que comenzó como un sueño para inspirar a otros a ser su mejor versión terminó sorprendiéndome, impulsándome a mirar hacia dentro y a desafiarme a también ser mi mejor versión.
Envision es una invitación a cuestionarnos cómo podemos vivir sintiendo más inspiración, más alineados con nosotros mismos, nuestra comunidad y la naturaleza. Somos una comunidad que se encuentra solo una vez al año, pero compartimos un propósito en común. No pretendemos ser expertos en la única manera de hacer las cosas; somos una invitación a ser parte de la conversación, una celebración de la vida y una demostración de nuestro potencial.
Envision es una comunidad en un momento en el que estar juntos es más necesario que nunca. En un mundo donde la gente todavía lidia con la soledad y el trauma de la pandemia, donde las guerras y los conflictos generan más división que nunca, y donde la incertidumbre económica y la automatización reemplazan empleos, la respuesta es unirnos y apoyarnos mutuamente. Cuando nos desviamos, podemos recordarnos el camino y cuando caemos, sostenernos.
Y, por supuesto, también nos reunimos para celebrar lo increíble de la vida en un entorno de belleza inigualable.
Así como yo sé que seguiré cometiendo errores y que tendré la humildad de seguir aprendiendo, Envision también reconoce que podemos mejorar. Así como Burning Man predica la “autosuficiencia radical”, yo pido que Envision se base en el principio del “autocuidado radical”, la compasión mutua y la voluntad de escuchar y crecer.
Esta pausa anual nos permite enfocarnos en poder intencionar mejor y ser más efectivos con nuestros propósitos. Estamos comprometidos a reducir la capacidad y centrar nuestros esfuerzos en la comodidad, salud y seguridad de todos los Visionarios: asistentes, artistas, equipo, voluntarios y comunidad local. Cada año vamos a mejorar y aprender juntos cómo ayudarnos entre todos. Creemos que, al mejorar la experiencia y fomentar el autocuidado, cada persona podrá vivir un viaje más significativo y transformador. También estamos trabajando para que Envision tenga un impacto más permanente, alineado con nuestra misión: inspirar la mejor versión de nosotros mismos en armonía con la naturaleza.
Te invito a sumarte a este próximo capítulo de Envision en 2026. Envision es una invitación, un llamado a la acción. Es un faro de unidad, amor y conexión con la naturaleza, ahora más que nunca. Te invito a ser la luz que el mundo necesita, a ser el visionario para aquellos que aún no pueden ver, a unirte con amor y compasión, a soltar lo que ya no te sirve y a avanzar con mayor intención.
Con amor y gratitud,
Josh B Wendel
