Pangaea Festival for Buckland in 2023

Media release – Pangaea Festival, 5 September 2022

One land, one sea, one people – Pangaea. A festival, reimagined

Pangaea is a three-day festive camping adventure in south-east lutruwita/Tasmania that aims to shine a new light on traditional festivals. From 3-6 February 2023, this immersive festival will celebrate community connectedness, social sharing, live music, performance, and art – all while creating a vision for the future.

It’s a true festival of the senses with something for everyone – embracing playtime, family and culture. There’s a strong focus on sustainability, educational and arts workshops, as well as a diverse range of local and national music acts.

“We’ve got a strong programme and an even stronger sustainability agenda,” says festival organisers Alison McCrindle and Sean Le Rossignol.

Taking place at Stonehurst, in luthmarratikalona (Prosser Plains/Buckland), Pangaea is expected to attract up to 1500 attendees to the 80-hectare camping bushlands and active farm in the Buckland region. There will be stages, workshop spaces, a marketplace and gathering hubs dotted around the bushland property.

There’s the magical world of ‘Circus Town’ with acrobats, comedians, sideshow legends, a flying trapeze and cabarets. A space to witness the remarkable, be inspired by the extraordinary and participate in workshops and experiences where play, learning and connection are cultivated.

Pangaea has a strong family focus. ‘Kidsville’ provides a nature-based playground hosting activities, adventures, explorations, and workshops from making costumes to bush arts and crafts.

The celebration of First Nations culture and ways of being are integral to the vision of Pangaea Festival. The ethos of sustainability sits on the broad shoulders of First Nations knowledge. Sharing, storytelling and deep listening, through music, arts, discussions, and ceremony will provide opportunities for cultural sharing and connection.

This is a festival of ideas and challenging existing mindsets. Workshops are central to the event. Focused on creativity, health and wellbeing, and sustainable living, there will be activities, presentations, and panels.

“We believe social learning is paramount in the development and progress of our kind and towards a sustainable future together,” says Alison.

Together Alison and Sean have more than 20 years of experience in the arts and event space. They travelled the world together gathering inspiration before establishing the popular live music and accommodation venue in North Hobart – Homestead Tasmania. Alison and Sean are a powerful duo, using their combined experience to step out of the standard festival mould and develop a unique event.

“We wanted to create a responsible festival model that nourished, educated and provided an adventurous fun environment for all ages,” says Sean.

Sustainability is at the forefront of the operations and offerings at Pangaea – across the social, environmental and economic arenas. Sean is currently studying a Bachelor of Sustainable Development and Alison has a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Diploma in Sustainable Living.

“We are guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” says Alison. “Our focus is on a circular economy: reused > recycled > repaired. Not the traditional festival model of take > make > waste. We want to close material loops, decreasing CO2 emissions towards a carbon-negative footprint, while increasing environmental awareness.”

There will be reusable cups at the bars, crockery in the marketplace and a ‘scrape your plate’ initiative. This is where patrons take part in a hands-on composting initiative with their food scraps – it’s a great way for people to recognise how easy it is to incorporate composting in day to day living.

The ‘Marketplace’ is host to a carefully curated selection of Tasmanian vendors with a strong focus on quality, handmade, recycled-upcycled, and locally sourced produce and supplies, with the overarching aim to strengthen sustainable practices and solutions.

The toilets will be composting toilets where the human waste is processed on site. “We have also teamed up with Tasmanian Land Conservancy to help mitigate the festival’s carbon footprint, by donating all car pass funds and patron footprint contributions to the Prosser River Reserve regeneration project, and Kelvedon Hills project,” says Sean.

Pangaea will be an inspirational and guiding festival for other festivals to learn from their sustainability lead approaches and to adopt and adapt them into their own festival operations.

“People come to festivals to experience a different reality – a place to connect with likeminded people, dance, eat good food, and create – we want to not just make this a reality for a weekend, we want to give people the sustainability tools to use in their everyday lives.”

Festival dates: February 3-6, 2023
Programme release : November 1, 2022
Where: Stonehurst, in luthmarratikalona (Prosser Plains/Buckland)