Envision Festival 2026 Announces Changes Including Reduced Capacity & New Sustainability Initiatives: ‘Health & Sanitation Are Our Headliners’

After a year-long hiatus, Envision Festival is returning to Uvita, Costa Rica this February. Attendees will once again be able to revel in the electronic-focused music, workshops and lush jungle setting that have defined the fest since its 2011 debut. Now, Envision organizers are announcing a host of changes and upgrades designed to optimize the 2026 edition.

“We have listened, and we have put changes into action,” Envision co-founder Josh Wendel tells Billboard. “We are now ready to share how we are evolving and how we will deliver a better experience.”

On Monday (Nov. 10) Envision organizers unveiled a long list of improvements for the 2026 fest, happening Feb. 23-March 2 at its longtime site in a beach-adjacent swatch of jungle on the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rica. The festival’s phase one lineup includes Bob Moses, CloZee, Daily Bread, Emancipator, Goldcap, Justin Martin and many others, with more artist to be announced in the coming weeks. Envision also offers a wide array of yoga, movement and sustainability classes, along with other workshops.

The announced changes follow a challenging 2024 edition, which found attendees citing sanitation issues and some attendees reporting that they experienced gastrointestinal illness while at the fest. Envision did not happen in 2025 as organizers regrouped, with Wendel transitioning from his production leadership role to leading the entire event, of which he also became the sole owner.

“After 2024 there were operational challenges we acknowledge that we had to fix, so in 2025 we chose the theme ‘back to our roots,’” Wendel says of the 2026 event’s guiding ethos. ” It was like, ‘What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How are we doing it? It became this deep, introspective journey of dissecting every little element of why I initially started it and the impact that it’s had.”

Originally from Florida and a Costa Rica resident for the last 22 years, Wendel speaks to Billboard from his home in Costa Rica, joking that he’s usually barefoot in the jungle. The updates he and the team developed emphasize that health and safety is Envision’s top priority and note that an audit of the 2024 event revealed multiple reasons for why people experienced GI issues, with “many people [getting] 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.”

Organizers are unrolling multiple methods for eradicating these issues in 2026. “It’s a hyper-focus on safety, on our medical team and on analyzing every which way that we can do that, including having a medical supervisor and a different medical team,” says Wendel. “You wouldn’t want to put this on the lineup poster, but health and sanitation are our headliners this year.”

As such, 2026 attendees will find separate stations for hand washing and water bottle refills. (While they were also separate in prior years, attendees did not treat them as such, so water will thus become a destination via a dedication water refill station called the Templos de Agua.

“It’s the jungle, and people are coming from all over the world to gather,” Wendel continues. “Obviously there is the self-care component we must continue to message to make sure people practice self-care as we give them the tools to do that. Wash your hands, use hand sanitizer, get some sleep, take care of yourself.”

As such, each festivalgoer will also be provided with a comprehensive guide to staying healthy while in Costa Rica that’s been developed in partnership with local doctors, health professionals and the Costa Rican Ministry of Health.

Another major change is the approach to toilets. Envision 2026 will provide more port-a-potties with more frequent pumping and better placement. Envision 2024 debuted a waterless, off-grid sanitation model using dry-composting toilets. The 2026 fest will improve upon this system by swapping out all tanks prior to guest arrival, so each system is fresh and empty at the start of the event. Carbon filters and improved ventilation will also be installed to reduce bathroom-related odors and increase airflow. A dedicated onsite maintenance team will service toilets more frequently during the fest to optimize cleanliness, hygiene and comfort.

After the festival, waste from these dry-composting toilets 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’s used for off-site organic fertilizer.

Envision has also brought in a new medical director, a Costa Rican doctor whose experience includes working with international film and television productions in the country and who is also part of a team that provides medical assistance to large-scale events in the U.S. This person will also work with a local medical team and in partnership with a local clinic, hospital and Ministry of Health and help hire more local people for the Envision lifeguard team that keeps watch over the festival’s beach area.

Expanded sustainability initiative will include water conservation guidelines and compostable cups, plates silverware and other serveware. Organizers predict that these compostable items will significantly reduce water consumption by eliminating the washing necessitated by a now phased out reusable dish program. Along with the water-free composting toilets, the production team is also installing low-flow showerheads and encouraging short showers for all guests.

“We’re not a luxury hotel,” says Wendel. “It is the jungle, and we are committed to doing everything to make it as convenient and comfortable and as easy as possible.”

Envision is also working closely with community partners and the organization who manages the local water supply to create a new on-site water system that ensure that the fest will have enough clean water and will also reduce the impact of Envision on the water flow of the nearby town. This system has been designed experienced engineers and will include filters, pumps, treatment, storage tanks and water distribution infrastructure.

These programs are particularly crucial given that Envision happens in an environmentally sensitive area, with the lush jungle setting, beach access and deep nature immersion provided by the fest being a huge part of its appeal. Envision happens at Rancho La Merced, located less than a mile north of the breathtaking Marino Ballena National Park, a protected marine sanctuary that’s home to humpback whales, spotted and bottlenose dolphins, manta rays, parrotfish and mackerel.

The festival site, which Envision leases from its owners, is itself home to emerging mangrove forests, creeks, freshwater canals, a host of tree and plant species, birds, monkeys and other wildlife.

“People come for the headliners, but then they’re barefoot in the jungle and jumping in that ocean, and doing yoga and drinking from a coconut and seeing monkeys and something clicks,” says Wendel. “People get inspired. The music is like a bait-and-switch.”

But there is of course the push/pull of bringing thousands of people (many of whom are looking to party for a week) to such a ecologically delicate area, an issue many festivals that happen in special places in nature must grapple with. “When you talk about environmental impact, I look at it as 10 steps forward, then one step back, with a little traffic and boom boom bass [during the festival itself], then 10 steps forward,” says Wendel.

Envision has put this into action by reforesting the site, where many of the trees were cut down in the mid-20th century to make space for a cattle pasture. Over the years, Envision has helped plant Ylang Ylang and fruit trees throughout the grounds and at Rancho La Merced and has also planted beach almonds in the campgrounds for shade. Before and after photos from 2014 to 2024 show an impressive expansion of trees and foliage on the site. Organizers have also worked with local organizations to plant in the surrounding area to protect water sources and provide biological corridors throughout the Rancho La Merced property.

To mitigate the impact of attendees on the festival on the site, the 2026 edition will also reduce capacity by roughly 2,000 people, bringing down overall attendance to approximately 5,500. (The amount of temporary infrastructure built on site will also be reduced.) This decreased headcount also factors in reducing travel from international Envision staff, with the focus being to hire as many local people as possible to mitigate impact, create jobs and keep the event local.

The fest is also leaning into this local component by bringing in more products from local vendors. This will include local produce kombucha brewed in Uvita, beer from nearby Dominical, cacao from local regenerative farms and herbal elixirs, mixers made in the region using native plants and locally grown herbs and compostable plates, cups and containers made in Costa Rica.

All of these changes are coming in tandem with a phase two lineup Wendel calls “by far the most exciting phase two that we’ve ever had.” While he’s tight-lipped about who it might be, he says this lineup expansion will likely be announced this month.

Over Zoom Wendel seems sincerely excited these changes and clear-eyed about the reasons for them. Many event producers often receive severe verbal abuse on social media when elements of an event go wrong, an experience Wendel says was not necessarily pleasant, but ultimately useful.

“Even when the feedback comes off as ugly and emotionally vomiting, I’m never losing sight of who I am or who we are as an organization. It’s about being able to pull out what valuable information I can that can actually make this event better.

“It’s psychological warfare right now, with the amount of anger, frustration and hatred,” he continues. “So [for me] it’s about asking how we can be vulnerable leaders? How can we be honest? How can we be humble? It’s about acknowledging mistakes and being proud of your desire to grow and learn from those mistakes… I’m making the best decisions I can make from the best information I have.”