How Microfestivals Became the Most Refreshing Way to Experience Art and Music

Mark Ellwood

15 February 2025 at 3:00 pm·4-min read

For Greg Habib, a banker-turned–event producer in Brazil, the pandemic was almost career-ending, spiking most of the large-scale music-festival gigs in which he specialized. When big gatherings were once again permitted, he resolved to reinvent his business, inspired in part by his love for Burning Man. “Why not bring together a nice group of people, with some amazing DJs, somewhere that’s out of their comfort zone, to try something new?” he tells Robb Report. “It’s way more interesting and intimate to do something with 100 people, where everybody is friends, than with 10,000.”

He distributed invites to friends, and friends of friends, ultimately bringing 60 like-minded people together for five days at a custom glamping site in Chile, atop the ideal spot to watch December 2020’s looming solar eclipse. It was the first in a series of such events he now hosts via his company, Immersion Community.

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Habib isn’t alone in organizing such symposia. A new crop of under-the-radar event organizers is aiming to refine the festival experience for a pickier crowd. There’s Earth One, the climate-centric community that whisked 300 hand-selected guests on a transatlantic networking cruise, and the U.K.’s Mistress Mary, the no-photos-allowed, 36-hour festival-within-a-festival at the indie-music conclave Secret Garden Party in Cambridgeshire. Re-Connect‘s three days of ice swimming and hippie-style mountain frolic take place in and around Gstaad—price (and access) upon request.

Attendees stargaze at an Immersion Community event.

Still, Habib emphasizes that his guest lists aren’t policed, per se, but rather assembled from a self-selecting group. “The fact that someone needs to get out of their comfort zone to reach out to us is one of the best filters,” he says. “You have to put a little bit more effort into it.” Since starting, he has been producing two events annually, each for up to 150 people, including an Amazon-rainforest cruise and a boat trip around Indonesia’s Raja Ampat. Next up: a five-day takeover of Belmond’s Andean Explorer train, which will trek through Peru, with the last wagon transformed into a custom nightclub. Attendees pay up to $9,300 per person, but there are also subsidized spots for lower-income creatives—“I want the poet, the painter, the dancers”—who’ll help set and sustain the right vibe.

Lulu Luchaire adopts much the same approach with Ondalinda, which she founded in 2016 as a hobby; she recently left her job as a technology executive to focus on it full-time. Luchaire threw her first event effectively to introduce her friends to Careyes, an artsy community on Mexico’s west coast. She invited 450 people—“a private community of friends of friends”—for an art exhibition and party. “I wanted it to be a combination of a safe space and a mind-blowing experience with extremely interesting people,” she says. Like Habib, she encouraged wealthier attendees to underwrite creatives’ attendance. “Being part of the community—a friend of a friend—dictates who comes, versus the amount of money you have.” (Tickets typically start at $1,800, excluding accommodations.) Ondalinda has since expanded to other sites, including a regatta-style festival in Montenegro. Luchaire is also planning events in the British countryside, Italy, and the French Alps.

The invitation-only Littlegig spotlights African creatives.

But anyone wanting to attend the next edition of Littlegig will have to be patient. Its organizer, Georgia Black—a former journalist who lives in South Africa—is taking a year off from the three-day confab she has thrown on the Kenyan island of Lamu and in Venice. Her 70-strong get-togethers, which champion African creatives such as Booker Prize–shortlisted author Tsitsi Dangarembga, feature intensive programming that all guests are expected to attend. There, they can swap stories and experiences, forging deeper connections. She personally interviews would-be participants for an hour via a video call, to cull “people who think it’s a rave, or who are a bit too fancy and want to network. I turn them away.” (Tickets cost $1,500 per person, plus accommodations.) Her role, she explains, is two-fold. “My mission is curating both the program and the audience,” she says with a laugh. “The audience is the art.”

But the ultimate gesture of exclusivity isn’t to attend one microfestival. It’s to throw your own. And Habib is already working with several clients who’ve asked him to dream up a bespoke Immersion Community. Want to hire him, too? One element is nonnegotiable. “The very first activity we do, on every Immersion, is volunteer work,” he says. “It’s a very special moment. And when all masks are down, that’s when everybody really bonds.”

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