THE TOTAL PACKAGE

By Heather Turk

Celebrating a decade of making a difference, Rock the Ocean’s Tortuga Music Festival takes place April 14 through 16 on beautiful Ft. Lauderdale Beach.

Sponsored in part by Allegiant, this year’s event will once again feature performances by artists across several music genres while raising money for marine conservation efforts. To date, more than $3 million has been raised from the ocean-side music festival, which began after its founder, Chris Stacey, saw how bad the condition of the world’s oceans had become after watching the documentary “The Cove.”

“I wanted to do something that could harness the power of music to shine a spotlight on how important it is to save our seas,” Stacey, a longtime music executive who founded the Rock the Ocean Foundation to support scientific research, education and public awareness about the issues impacting the world’s oceans, told nonstoplife

In addition to seeing such notable acts as Kenny Chesney, Eric Church and Shania Twain performing on the Allegiant Main

Stage and Wiz Khalifa, Justin Moore and The Wallflowers performing on the Sunset Stage, this year’s festival will feature a third stage dedicated to emerging acts based out of Nashville. When festivalgoers aren’t watching some of their favorite music acts perform, they can learn more about the critical environmental issues facing our oceans by exploring the on-site Conservation Village.

“Each year we try to curate our Conservation Village lineup in a thoughtful manner,” Stacey said. “We identify groups that, in our opinion, are really putting in the time and effort in the fight to save our oceans. We highlight five core issues (sea turtle conservation, shark conservation, marine pollution, overfishing and coral reef degradation) and find the thoughtleaders who are driving the science behind each issue. Then we give them an opportunity to showcase their work for all of our fans. I always say we bring the rockstars of ocean conservation to Tortuga.”

Guests can actually pick up a passport and earn stamps by visiting core issue tents in the Conservation Village for a chance to win free tickets to next year’s Tortuga Music Festival. Stacey noted that guests can “dive as deep or as shallow” as they want at each location.

“The learning potential is unlimited,” Stacey stated. “You can spend 30 seconds completing a task to earn

Continued on page 19 your stamp, or you might engage a scientist and spend an hour in their booth doing the interactive display and really learning a lot about your favorite topic.”

Festivalgoers are encouraged to stop by the Eco Exchange as well to pick up a bag to collect trash and recyclable materials with during the event. Guests can then return their filled bag to accumulate points for a chance to win a variety of prizes, from Allegiant flight vouchers to passes to next year’s festival. The more items guests pick up, the better prizes they can win. Stacey noted that the festival takes its location on a stretch of beach that also happens to be a sea turtle nesting zone very seriously, and even has a sustainability coordinator who makes sure the event is as green as possible.

“Our internal motto is Rethink-Reduce-Restore,” Stacey said. “We want to Rethink every aspect of our production and find the most eco-friendly options; Reduce by only bringing things on site that are truly required; and Restore or refurbish the habitat so it’s better than we found it. We were the first major music festival to not allow single-serve plastic water bottles. We don’t use plastic straws. We use all compostable service ware. We use biodiesel and solar power on many of our generators and other heavy equipment. We recycle or compost most of our waste, and we recycle cigarette butts that we collect on site. Our goal is to become the most sustainable large-scale music festival in the world.”

For those who really want to support the