This year’s Blessed Coast Yoga Festival aims to host more than double or triple the number of the attendees at previous years.
About 900 attended in 2016.
Still, organizer Kala Siddha was insistent that it was not just an average large-scale music festival. “We really value the fact that the festival is not a massive party, it’s a family friendly festival made possible by volunteers,” he said.
“There’s full schedule of yoga workshops and talks which people can enjoy from sunrise in the morning to sunset in the evening. We’ve put in a lot of work finding B.C.’s most inspiring Yoga teachers and speakers,”
Like in previous years, the festival will be held at the picturesque Cheekeye Ranch, situated centrally amidst the mountain, riverbank and beach scape of the surrounding area, taking place the weekend of July 28-31.
Though the event officially began three years ago, Siddha related to The Squamish Chief that the event actually had its origins almost six years ago, where the family and friends of the soon-to-be founders would gather on the Squamish Nation reserve on the other side of the Mamquam River for unofficial workshops and community practice.
The gatherings grew over the next three years, and the organizers decided to go professional in the summer of 2015, enlisting the help of local B.C. entrepreneurs and artists. Aside from Yoga workshops, the festival will also be hosting a number of indigenous leaders who will be leading seminars on healing and human-environmental relationships. Sustainability is a significant theme, and Blessed Coast will using products primed with 100 per-cent renewable and solar-rechargeable batteries, acquired from local B.C. company and festival-partner, Portable Electric.
Siddha, who is himself a Neo-Soul, R&B and Rap artist who goes simply by Kala, seemed most excited for this year’s performer line-up.
The line-up includes DJ Shub, formerly of reknowned Canadian First Nations band, A Tribe Called Red. For fans of World Music, Alpha Yaya Diallo, winner of three Juno Awards will perform. “We just want to book more and more amazing artists every year, increasing the quality of what we do, and not just the size.
We want to redefine the experience for the guests every year and make sure everybody feels safe,” he said.
Go to http://www.blessedcoast.ca/ for tickets or more information.
