The Dance Floor is a Classroom: How Ultra is Shaping the Future of Sustainable Festivals
- Samantha
- May 14
- 3 min read
In 2013, I walked into Ultra Music Festival for the first time and my life changed. I didn't know it then, but that weekend in Miami planted a seed that would grow into a meaningful part of my life's work.
A few weeks ago, I walked back in for Ultra 2026 - this time as part of a collaboration between Plant Futures , Bye Bye Plastic Foundation , and Ultra's sustainability team. And I felt that shift again.
Alongside Darleen Martinez with Plant Futures and Ezra Peláez with ByeBye Plastic, we were elevating Ultra's incredible work around sustainability and food, interviewing artists backstage and hearing their reactions to our "Plant Baddies”, "Plants are the Future", and "Byebye Plastic" shirts, and we walked the main aisle in "Eat More Plants" shirts while thousands of people cheered. We got a behind-the-scenes look at how a world-class festival is rethinking every system – from a battery-powered stage to local food initiatives and a full waste reduction initiative under the Mission Home group.
As Emily (Milly) Milton , Sustainability Consultant for Ultra, put it backstage:
"Whether it's something you see on a sign, experience in the Eco Village, or hear from an artist – it all turns these collective experiences into a classroom, hopefully the most fun classroom you've ever been in."
That's exactly what it felt like.
The reactions to the “Plants are the Future” stickers said everything. Steve Aoki, Skrillex, Diplo, Lady Verse, Gil Glaze , Bizarrap, Luke Hunter, Plastik Funk, DJ Ideal. These are artists who understand that the same stages that move more than 100,000 people on a Saturday night can also move culture toward something better. As DJ Ideal put it:
"Dance music is connected to peace, love, union, respect – PLUR – but the 'R' should also represent responsibility."
Every conversation reinforced the same truth: the dance floor is one of the most powerful convening spaces on the planet.
Ultra is a proving ground for culture shift. Ultra is setting the precedent. When sustainability lives inside the experience – not on a pamphlet, not in a lecture – people feel it. They receive it, they dance for it, and they cheer for it. We interviewed Vivian Belzaguy Hunter, Director of Sustainability at Ultra, who captured it perfectly:
"Music festivals are the perfect platform for education. We have such a captive audience here. It's such a cultural moment to change things and do things better than we do them in the regular world."
We can talk about climate action and plant-centered food systems all we want. But culture doesn't change through information alone. It changes through gathering in the places we already love, with the people who live in alignment with our values.
Massive shoutout to the Ultra sustainability team for leading with such intention, and to ByeBye Plastic for showing up with us in full force. And to everyone who stopped us, danced with us, and said yes to the message – you are the movement!
Plant Futures was made for meeting people where they are, in the spaces they love, and making sustainable, plant-centered living feel easy, joyful, and values-aligned. That’s how the future of climate action is being shaped.
Ultra is proving that, and we’re so proud to be part of it. More from this collaboration coming soon! Stay tuned, and subscribe to Designing Planty Culture for more. 🌍
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