For starters, there’s the symbolism of the beach and sea in connection with a sustainable festival. “Lots of wind, lots of sun,” van Schie says, “and the dunes will make for a unique backdrop.” Also, the municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland and businesses in the region are very committed to sustainability.

“No, I haven’t yet worked up the courage to check how long it will take students to get there by public transport from Eindhoven,” Hasenaar admits with a laugh. “We would obviously like visitors to take public transport, so one thing we’ll do is set up a shuttle from the station,” Van Schie adds. She also takes the opportunity to point out that the tickets for the first festival day, Thursday 21 September, have been priced at 25 euros to accommodate students’ budgets.

Sand

Moonen’s eyes light up with enthusiasm when he talks about the festival location: “The beach will have several distinctly themed areas. We’ll set up a container village, a large stage and an artificial island connected by a sustainable bridge.”

The stage and the island will be constructed from the omnipresent sand – the most local of raw materials the beach has to offer. And there won’t be any waste either, Moonen says: “After the festival we’ll give back the grounds to the sea, leaving it up to the tide to smooth everything out again.”

Van Schie: “We’ll fill big bags with sand to create building blocks for the main stage.” The audience can sit on bleachers – also made of sand – shaped like an amphitheater, “which will create excellent acoustics for the concerts,” Moonen says. The line-up, which has been put together by Jan Douwe Kroeske’s music platform 2 Meter Sessies, features acts like Kovacs and Ruben Hein.

Mote

A bit further along, we’ll find the Energie Eiland. “It will be surrounded by a mote, not unlike those kids dig around sand castles with their little shovels. It will be right on the tide line, with a passage for the seawater,” Van Schie says. Of course the scale will be slightly different: the island is to spread out across seven hundred square meters.  And the biobased bridge crossing the mote will be fourteen meters long.

It will be “Rijk’s bridge,” Moonen and Van Schie say in reference to their colleague Rijk Blok who passed away last year. This bridge used to lead across the stream the Dommel, on the TU/e campus by the Auditorium. “There will also be an exhibition of test pieces of three other biobased bridges from a large European Interreg project led by TU/e. This will provide an insight into how the material and technology have developed.”

The island will also include a range of innovations in the area of sustainable energy, mostly by TU/e: “Someone doing the Engineering Doctorate is designing a biobased pavilion, three Honors projects will be showcased and several student teams will be involved,” Van Schie says.

The main eyecatcher will of course be the GEM-Stage. “This is the successor to the GEM-tower, with a stage at its base,” Moonen explains. “All of the required power for the performances will be supplied by the tower, thanks to solar, wind and – newly – hydrogen energy produced courtesy of TU/e spin-off DENS.”

Pierre Wind

Another part of the beach will house an entire festival village, made up of sea containers that are readily available in the province of Zeeland. Together with a number of fellow students, Hasenaar is responsible for its design and construction.

“One of the things you’ll find there is a restaurant where top chef Pierre Wind will create high-level sustainable meals, for example using ingredients that would otherwise be thrown away.” The energetic TV chef is excited about the concept and contributes a lot of ideas to every meeting, Hasenaar says. It of course remains to be seen which of those ideas will ultimately be put into practice.

Contribution

Will the idea of exhibiting ugly but tasty vegetables make it? The workshop in preparing delicious and efficient meals using induction? The demo on how to cook using brackish water? They are all exemplary of the message the organizers want to send the audience (in addition to giving them a great festival experience): everyone can contribute to a better future.

“Instead of laying out a doomsday scenario, we want to show all of the awesome developments in the area of sustainability that are currently underway, and the great future these may lead to,” Moonen says. This is not to say that the trio isn’t worried about the climate crisis, but simply means they are choosing a positive approach. “Too much negativity frightens people off,” Hasenaar says, with Van Schie adding: “Whereas a positive message activates them and increases their support.”