The De-Evolution of EVOLVEFEST
Music Festivals have long been known as spaces that are open to individual expression, love, acceptance and community. Most festivals strive to maintain a safe, comforting and loving environment for all of their attendees no matter their race, sexual orientation or gender identification. This is what makes the festival community great. People rely on festivals as a safe space where they can truly be themselves and leave the judgments of the outside world behind them.
Enter EVOLVEFEST, a so-called ‘transformational’ festival that has taken place in New Jersey every August since 2006. This festival describes itself as “~A visionary community of bold souls, kind minds and artistic mystics~We host the East Coast’s #1 Transformational Festival~Art, Music, Spirit and Nature~! The Most HyperCreative, RadicallyResponsible, EthicallyAligned, DeeplyGrounded, HeartCentered, SacredlyAware Transformational Gathering!” Their mission is stated as “Evolvefest exists to jumpstart the MASS AWAKENING of humanity~ so that ALL BEINGS might LOVE AND BE LOVED, that all beings might BE HAPPY AND FREE and so that all beings MAY AWAKEN TO THEIR TRUE NATURE~!” Just by reading these brief and grammatically unsound descriptions, you would think that this festival aligns itself with the culture of many others… but you would be wrong.
The festival has been using its social media platforms to tout organizer David Bryson’s disconcerting anti-LGBT agenda. If you go to the festival’s Facebook photos, you can see little mention of the festival, its lineup or anything remotely having to do with music. Instead you will see images with disheartening bigoted commentary that promotes an extremist Christianity mindset and shames the LGBT community. In one of their most recent posts, they state that their festival is indeed not “LGBT Friendly” and even added a photo of a burning rainbow flag just in case anyone didn’t get the message.
Thankfully, most of the comments on these photos show distain for the festival’s views and people vowing to never attend any future EVOLVEFESTs, but there are of course certain individuals commenting in agreement. Others in the industry are also seeing the problem. L4LM reported last February that the festival had lost its location due to the bigoted comments made by Bryson. The 2015 installment ended up getting canceled, and, as of today, there have been no announcements of a new location for 2016. Music fans have also come together on a Facebook page to boycott the festival. Although this situation is both sad and confusing, Bryson has dug his own festival’s grave by bringing his private hateful feelings to the forefront.
